My high school chemistry teacher, Helen Steele, was a source of revelation: she taught me about molecules. A quick definition: Molecules are composed of atoms, which are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Molecules are the fundamental components of matter.
That’s amazing in itself, but learning that wasn’t revelatory. It was when she pointed to the enormous lab table at the front of the class and said this: that table is mostly empty space because space makes up the vast majority of molecules. The table that weighed several hundred pounds was mostly made up of the space between protons, neutrons, and electrons – just as the cosmos is largely made up of space between planets and galaxies. It’s in this place in between the invisible molecular level and the vast cosmic scale that the space is hidden in the solidity of a table.
For the rest of my tenth grade year, every time I saw that lab table, I knew I was in the presence of the mysterious, that Mystery created and surrounded that scratched, charcoal colored piece of furniture. Learning about how molecules came together or separated into new combinations, and how those combinations of mostly-made-of-space molecules manifested into salt, water, soil, rock, and everything else I could see just added to the mystery of it all.
Life, in all its many forms, is composed of the empty space between and among the atoms that come together in molecular structures. Even now, my heart beats faster just thinking about it. And that empty space, that space between, is a sacred one. That’s the vision of reality that Helen Steele offered.
I never told her how important that larger view of the world was to me, and I never shared it with my classmates or other school friends. It didn’t seem like something they would understand or value. I left a different kind of empty space between myself and them in keeping silent about it.
One January morning, seated in a science classroom at the University of New Hampshire, geology professor Cecil J. Schneer would offer a similar glimpse of the Mystery – this time in the History of Science. At the end of the first class, I let go of being embarrassed by how profoundly his lecture moved me and I thanked him for the revelation. I sent my words into that empty space, and a connection was created. I think it’s one of the moments that nudged me toward seminary and a the work of pointing out to others the mysteries that surround and fill life.
For more information about molecules, check out McGill University’s Office for Science and Society: What is a Molecule. (www.mcgill.ca)
