If you saw the first episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, you’ll probably have been impressed with Neil deGrasse Tyson’s testimony about the impact of Carl Sagan on his life. This reminded me of a powerful “sermon” he “preached” at the Beyond Belief 2006 conference, which is the video embedded above. His account of being a physics major at a Liberal Arts school is powerful and very timely in our era when some students think the point of a university education is merely the learning of vocationally-focused skills. His account of the transformative impact of learning to paint pumpkins – and then the space between pumpkins – is moving.
My favorite point is when he talks about his vocation, being “called by the universe” and being chosen rather than choosing to follow this career path. He then goes on to talk about his awareness that his excitement about “offering the universe” to people is akin to the excitement that people have who say they’ve seen Jesus and go around proclaiming him. He talks explicitly about the depth of spiritual feeling that results from his work.
I mentioned this video in a meeting I had today with Judy Cebula, the director of Butler University’s Center for Faith and Vocation. That center serves as a home for campus ministries, but it was never intended to be only that. It is a center to help students explore their vocation, whether from a religious, spiritual, or completely secular perspective. I suspect that this talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson may be helpful as we try to foster conversations about vocation that cross boundaries. There is no reason why you have to be religious in order to have a strong sense of calling. But also, conversely, it is arguable that any sense of calling has a religious component, even if not a traditional theistic one.
I also appreciate the way Tyson articulates the impact that science can have in both humbling and exalting us, as we open ourselves to photons from distant stars and seek to understand our place in the cosmos.
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