A friend asked, "Why ask why?" I have no good answer to that question, except to say, "Why, indeed?" Why not just accept that the universe is, and work from there, without the assumption that there must have been a Creator. It happened. I'm OK with that.

The friend also suggested speaking of "divine action" rather than "divine intervention," thereby placing the creative forces and sources within the process by which the cosmos is formed rather than outside it. In theological circles, the reference is to "Process Theology." I am reminded that Lederman said, "...turbulent landmasses and more turbulent oceans organized themselves." Other scientists have suggested that Darwin's concept of natural selection might not account for the evolution of species without some element of self-organization to guide it. In my own growing commitment to theological immanence -- God within me, as within the universe -- it fits to think of God as the creative process rather than God as creative being who stands outside the process.

Here is more of what I have come to think of as scientific or cosmic spirituality.

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Both Matthew Fox and Brian Swimme have written of the human meanings of cosmic dynamics.

Matthew Fox has stated rules for living well in the universe:

1. Extravagance -- in nature all is spent but is not lost.

2. Interconnectivity -- all is shared; the human word is compassion.

3. Expansion -- love expands; when there is a choice, opt for expansion.

4. Variety -- value diversity.

5. Creativity -- our challenge is to continue the unfolding of the evolution in which we share.

6. Emptiness -- solitude is built in; meditate to get in touch with your space for dancing.

7. Justice -- face the darkness and denial and find the inner force for symmetry.

8. Beauty -- grace, intoxicating fascination; let it work its way with us; pelt one another with beauty; draw beauty from others.

9. Sacrifice -- birth and death are necessary for future life; death furthers evolution; the Eucharist as a reverential act; respond with gratitude.

10. Suffering and resurrection -- cosmic recycling.

In The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story, Brian Swimme, cosmologist who teaches in Matthew Fox's Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality, finds lessons for humankind in the story of the universe. He looks toward a radical transformation in our world view as we come to understand the human within the intrinsic dynamics of the Earth. It is a context for meaning, value, purpose, and a sense of ultimacy.

(I despair of finding the words to convey the poetry, music, and drama that Swimme finds in the emerging process of creation/evolution. His writing is much more than the head-stuff of the scientist; it is the reverent appreciation of the mystic as well.)

Take this summary quotation as an example:

"We looked at the night sky and reflected on allurement. We examined the seas and talked of absorption, assimilation, and sensitivity.... We saw the dynamic of memory in the way the land remembers. We looked at life forms and found there the presence of adventurous play, in exploration, free activity, and imagination. Remember the human as the baby of the universe? ... Then we considered the flame, probing the meaning of the self, seeing in each of these the presence of unseen shaping. Finally we considered wind and saw there the expansion of being, the dynamic of celebration." (The Universe as a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story, p. 149).

Swimme identifies six cosmic powers: allurement, sensitivity, memory, adventurous play, unseen shaping, and celebration. What follows is my understanding of what he means by each power:

Scientifically there are four forces that act to bind together the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, chemical attractions, and biological (including human) attractions. This basic binding energy is a fact of existence, an expression of allurement. This is love in its cosmic dimension, love "which ignites being and enhances life."

For Swimme, the "universe is a single, multiform event." Everything is connected as "further articulations of the primal fireball." We carry within us some particle of that original explosion, that creative process that began more than 15 billion years ago and continues in and through us. Produced by that process are unique beings, never redundant, never to be repeated.

Our task, Swimme says, is to create the human form of the powers of the universe. From the sea we learn to absorb. The human form is sensitivity, listening and assimilating the deep feelings that are alive all around us. From the land we learn to remember and reconnect. The DNA in our bodies, for example, is a sequence of memories, a way we learn from linking with the past and a way we see the past working in the present. The wisdom of tribal peoples could contribute much to the development of the cosmic dynamic of memory. As we remember pain and evil, we will avoid mistakes. "When we remember beauty, we become this beauty for the living present."

Awareness of the limits of life compel us to reverence and to bring forth what is within us, to enter the adventure of creating a self. How do we meet the allurement, the fascination of all that is around us? The central powers of the human person are to imagine, to explore, to learn as deeply as we can, and above all to laugh. In other words, to be truly human is to engage in adventurous play, even as, or especially as, adults.

Fire is a self-organizing activity which is another cosmic dynamic. "The earth is a self-organizing process of astounding complexity and achievement." The earth maintains a narrow band of conditions for life and evolution. "...we are the self-reflexive mind and heart of the whole numinous process." The whole process is alive and present in the individual creature. The macrocosm is connected with the microcosm. With our dreams, imagination and self-awareness we are called to enable Earth to organize itself in a new way -- to realize the possibilities of a vastly more rich and complex mode of life.

From the wind, we learn the cosmic dynamic of the second law of thermodynamics, which is exuberance, celebration, ultimate generosity. (Grace, isn't it?) "Let celebration be. Let generosity happen. Nothing more is required." (The Tao, isn't it?) "Fall in love, sink into intimacy with all things, explore the relationships throughout the earth's realm, pursue your dreams, and flood all creatures with goodness."

These quotations are from Swimme's final chapter:

"We enter a period of enormous promise. The scientific-technological, Christian, masculine, individualistic, Northern European joins with the ecological, animistic, feminine, communal native spiritualities in the creation of a new form of society whose significance towers over that of all other political or social events."

"Out of their primal stories humans define what is real and what is valuable, what is beautiful, what is worthwhile, what to be avoided, what to be pursued."

"...most amazing of all is the way in which this story, though it comes from the empirical scientific tradition, corroborates in profound and surprising ways the ecological vision of the Earth celebrated in every traditional native spirituality of every continent."

"Our primary teacher is the universe. The universe evokes our being, supplies us with creative energy, insists on a reverent attitude toward everything, and liberates us from our puny self-definition."

"When I say that the universe is the principal moral authority, I mean by this the manner in which we are taught the value of the earth. The elements were bestowed on us by the stars, the complex compounds given to us by the young Earth, the informed sequences of the genes by the microcosms, our limbs and organs by advanced life forms, and the linguistic symbols carrying our thoughts and feelings by the human venture.... The universe created these gifts, lavishing them upon us; our first and deepest response is infinite gratitude."

"That which created all of this now desires our creativity, commitment, and labor, our delight in entering with full awareness the cosmic story.... Given a finite number of days in which to live, a particular store of primordial fire with which to work, who could deny that all that matters is contributing to the awesome work of fashioning the universe?"