As Mr. Appel himself admitted, NG, No Good, was not quite accurate. There was much that was good in the work of Ptolomy, Newton, Einstein and others along the way. But they weren't the final word, and there comes a point when old paradigms no longer serve expanding insights into physical reality.
Much as I wanted to learn more about quantum theory, and the interplay of wave vs particle vs string theory, I did not become a physicist. I finished a minor in math my first year of college, foundered on general chemistry, and ended up with a double major in English and Humanities.
The world is full of mysteries: what we know points us to all we don't know.
I've been thinking that the life of Jesus, his death, his resurrection, were in a way like Mr. Appel's large NG scrawled across the chalkboard. Not that what came before was wrong, not good, but that it was inadequate.
Jesus tried in many ways to explain that, talking of new wine in old wineskins. The law and the prophets gave an elementary framework, in the way the work of Ptolomy or Newton set the foundation for Einstein to build on.
But that analogy fails badly. The new paradigm, the new kingdom Jesus announced, was not about knowledge, but reality.
T.S. Eliot tried to capture that in the first of his Four Quartets:
At the still point of the turning world, neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. [from Burnt Norten]
I had a momentary thought that I'd create a word cloud of BC compared to AD reality: before and after. Law vs grace. Past and future.
But that's really impossible. So much changed in that moment that turned the world upside down. And yet so much didn't change, but was instead reframed into what it was from the beginning. And so much is still to be seen. Not yet understood.
So instead of my impossible word cloud, I thought I'd dig into the Greek word for new. Another rabbit track that set my head spinning:
There are two Greek words kainos and neos translated in our New Testament by the word "new." Kainos is new in kind and in contrast to what previously existed, so taking the place thereof. In that sense kainos looks backward, while its synonym neos looks forward. Kainos is equivalent to "not yet having been": neos is "not having long been." The conjunction of the two words occurs in Matt. 9:17. Luke 5:38, where new (neos) wine is put into new (kainos) skins and both are presented.Kainos never before existed. The new we can't imagine. Neos is like the old, but replacing it, renewing it, restoring it.
Which brings me back to Eliot's poem: "do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered." In a sense that still point in the turning world was the place of greatest action, greatest mystery. Who could explain it? So many try but all attempts fall short.
Quantum physics attempts to define light: is it a wave, a particle, or a billion vibrating miniscule strings?
Even more impossible is the attempt to define the Light behind the light, the Word beyond our words. Is kainos, "not yet having been," new in time, or new only to us?
When I was a youth pastor, we spent an entire semester exploring the now and not yet kingdom of God. 6th to 12th grade, college interns, adult leaders: we tiptoed around the edges of mysteries known and unknown. After weeks of talks, Bible studies, exploration, prayer, imaging, we had barely scratched the surface.
The old is gone. The new is still unfolding. And someday, we don't know when, there will be another point in time, yet not time - beyond time? - when all things are new again.
