It’s the study of matter, energy, space, and time as a way to figure out how the universe came to be and continues on. From the subatomic to the galactic, physics explores it all. And yet, it was so boring a class that I dropped it in both high school and college. How can that be?

I wish someone had mentioned the big picture of the field at some point when I was still sitting in the classroom. I wish someone had told me that all the equations and models were attempts to understand and hand on a glimpse of the miracle that is this cosmos -writ large across galaxies and small among the atoms. But no one did.

Turning the miraculous and mysterious into something boring isn’t just happening in a physics classroom. It happens in confirmation classes, where creeds and dogma are trundled out like how-to manuals rather than what they are: a specific group of people’s best attempt to hand on their life changing experience of God. Religious studies classes, seminary courses, even Bible studies – none are immune from well meaning people sucking the life out of them along with the air out of the classroom.

I think it’s time to start over, to let go of the dull packaging that has surrounded so much mystery. It’s time to take another look with an open heart, a curious mind, and an adventurous spirit.

Anyone else up for taking another look?