Weekly Reflection - 2/22/2024
St. Mary's Reflection: Russell Fudge, Senior Warden
I am deeply honored to be selected for the position of St. Mary’s Senior Warden for the coming year. My immediate predecessor, Gloria Galindo, has bequeathed to me a Vestry that has been, and I fully expect will continue to be, a joy to work with and prepared to advance the St. Mary's community in the coming year.
I fully believe that we owe much to our past. This was recently brought home to me upon re-reading an address that William Bray, my maternal grandfather, delivered at the dedication of the Biological Laboratory at the University of Texas on May 3, 1925. Dr. Bray was a renowned professor of botany, first at the University of Texas, and then at Syracuse University. In this reflection I will take the liberty of quoting/paraphrasing from this address. Remember that this is a student and teacher of science speaking.
“In my boyhood days I was taught the philosophy that Heaven and its eternity of happiness was the only thing that mattered: that this earth is a vale of tears and its suffering and sorrow but preparatory experience to fit us to become members of the heavenly community. That was to her last hours my mother’s philosophy. It was and is a wonderful conception of human duty and destiny; nor would I submit to the accusation of having adopted a materialistic philosophy when I say that within the span of my life the emphasis has so largely turned to the business of right living and acting in this present life. The kingdom of Heaven is here among men and in the hearts of men."
Dr. Bray then proceeds to enlarge upon the role of biology and all the sciences.
“As I see it, its (biology) first great teaching is that God is in his universe creating, ordering, controlling, and no more obviously than in the lives of men."
“It is a universe of law and order.”
“It is a universe of energy. Work is not only a cosmic law but a biological necessity and working with zeal and purpose and conserved strength in the nature of a moral law.” He then names several famous men of science.
“It is a universe of vast scope and quite inconceivable breadth of plan. To appreciate only a little of it is to broaden the scope of human thinking.”
With the following passages, Dr. Bray uses the metaphor of theater and states that the consciousness of being in the grand drama of life has brought great thrills. “I get immeasurable satisfaction in reflecting on the vastness of the thing, the purpose running through it, the method of its development, the beauty and artistry of it.”
“From the botanical point of view some of the action in this world-life drama is of outstanding-let us say-cosmic- significance. The setting involves a broad terrain of hill and valley, of mountain and plain; of plowed field and wildland; steams and lakes and ocean. A beautifully transparent medium rests upon all, blue in the distance and rising to indefinite, even bluer heights. It is one of those plays in which some the actors are also part of the scenery. Now enters the dominant figure of the play-the sun pouring his radiant energy over all.”
He goes on to describe the action: the “greenly clad players” that seize upon the rays and by apparent magic (photosynthesis of course) direct them in a performance, the outcome of which is to provide lumber, fuel, food clothing to all the animal life of the world.
He concludes with this passage of thankfulness.
“Now it has been my experience, and without exception so far as I am aware of the thousands of students whom I have had the privilege of teaching, that such concepts of the great life plan as that just presented and of many others which are a part of the teaching of biological science tend forcefully to awaken the religious nature of a man. One gains an inspiring realization of the great privilege of being permitted to view thus more intimately the methods by which God works in His world. It is as if one were being permitted to realize more fully the dignity of sonship which the great Redeemer declared to be the unique heritage of humanity. So it is in the course of exercising this sonship privilege that I have sought to learn more fully about the great plan of the Creator of the universe and in some small measure His mode of creation.”
Upon reading these words from nearly on hundred years ago, I found myself in awe that they were written by the man I knew who smoked a cigar after dinner, read western novels, and always found a dollar bill in his pocket for his grandchildren when they came to dinner.
Russell Fudge,
Senior Warden
