Given it’s a pandemic holiday season, it seems reasonable to limit the pictures this time to places that I could get to by foot or bicycle—or see by looking out my window. All pictures from the last few weeks.

And for better or worse, what’s in my mind right now is one of the books I’m teaching, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, which among other things asks us to ponder where truth is most likely to be found—in religion, in science, in both, or in neither.

School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. What I hated most was the competitive system there, and especially sports. Because of this, I wasn’t worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave.

Albert einstein

The more I read, the more puzzled I was by the order of the universe and the disorder of the human mind, by the scientists who didn’t agree on the how, the when, or the why of creation.

Albert Einstein

Then one day this student brought me Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Reading Kant, I began to suspect everything I was taught. I no longer believed in the known God of the Bible, but rather in the mysterious God expressed in nature.

Albert Einstein

The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we can’t grasp them. There is a pattern in creation.

Albert Einstein

If we look at this tree outside whose roots search beneath the pavement for water, or a flower which sends its sweet smell to the pollinating bees, or even our own selves and the inner forces that drive us to act, we can see that we all dance to a mysterious tune, and the piper who plays this melody from an inscrutable distance–whatever name we give him—Creative Force, or God–escapes all book knowledge.

Albert Einstein

As Bokonon says: ‘Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.’

Kurt Vonnegut (CAT’S CRADLE)

But no sooner had the sun slipped away from the leaves than the temperature dropped. In a matter of minutes, a profound sadness washed over me. And somehow I knew, in this kind of light, in this kind of late-afternoon December light, it always would.

When a sissy climbs a mountain in may

Science is never finished because the human mind only uses a small portion of its capacity, and man’s exploration of his world is also limited.

Creation may be spiritual in origin, but that doesn’t mean that everything created is spiritual. . . . Let us accept the world is a mystery. Nature is neither solely material nor entirely spiritual.

Albert einstein

If we want to improve the world we cannot do it with scientific knowledge but with ideals. Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi have done more for humanity than science has done.

Albert Einstein

Religion and science go together. As I’ve said before, science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. They are interdependent and have a common goal–the search for truth.

Albert Einstein

Lean into December light

Feel the warmth before the night

Lean into December light

Watch the ravens taking flight.

NDuaduo

Hence it is absurd for religion to proscribe Galileo or Darwin or other scientists. And it is equally absurd when scientists say that there is no God.

Albert Einstein

Tiger got to hunt / Bird got to fly;

Man go to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’

Tiger got to sleep / Bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.

Kurt Vonnegut (cat’s cradle)

The mejiro come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The mejiro come and go

Telling us all the things they know.

When a sissy climbs a mountain in may

Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth—against which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and like a jealous patentee, on no account to make.

Nathaniel hawthorne

Birds were talking. One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, “Poo-tee-weet?”

Kurt vonnegut (slaughterhouse-five)

(from Persimmon Dreams: When you’ve got a spare moment, check out our music/nature videos on our “Persimmon Dreams” YouTube channel, or Steve’s books, When a Sissy Climbs a Mountain in May and Along the Same Street, available on Amazon, or directly from us. And if you enjoyed this post, consider sharing with others. Thank you!)