“At
Trustful Rest”
Isaiah 11:1-10
First Presbyterian
Prior to this week, I never had
heard of a scientific phenomenon called “The Isaiah Effect.”
And then, during the course of these last few days as I have been
pondering the passage we earlier read, I ran across allusions to it in three
different places. I do not know how
that happens or why, but I am more than glad to accept the synchronicity or
convergence, whatever you want to call it. Just
do not call it coincidence for I agree with Ross Mackenzie when he said, “There
are no coincidences in life, only connections.”
And it is our task to follow where the connections lead.
In
trying to explain “The Isaiah Effect,” let me tell you about three
astonishing experiments with DNA. In
the first experiment, a container was emptied…that is, a vacuum was created
within it so that the only thing left in the container was photons, particles of
light. The scientists measured the
distribution, or location, of the photons and found that they were dispersed
randomly inside the container. This
result was expected. Next, some DNA
was placed inside the container and the location of the photons was re-measured.
This time, the photons were lined up in an orderly way and in alignment
with the DNA. In other words, the
physical DNA had an effect on the non-physical protons.
When the DNA subsequently was removed from the container, and the
location of the photons again was determined, it was discovered that the photons
remained ordered and lined up where the DNA had been.
How could that be? To what
were the light particles, the photons, connected?
Gregg Braden, one of the scientists studying “The Isaiah Effect,”
says it is likely that some heretofore unknown field of energy, a web of energy,
is present and that the DNA is communicating with the photons through this
energy web.
The
second experiment was conducted by military scientists.
This time, DNA culled from white blood cells was placed into chambers so
that electrical changes could be measured. In
this experiment, oft repeated with many different cell donors, the donor of the
white blood cells was placed in a room and subjected to “emotional
stimulation” induced by a variety of video clips that generated various
emotions in the donor. The DNA of
the donor was placed in a different room in the same building.
Both the donor and the DNA were monitored and as the donor exhibited
emotional highs and lows, measured by his or her electrical responses, the DNA
exhibited identical responses at exactly the same time.
There was no lag time, no transmission time.
The experimenters wanted to see how far away they could separate the
donors from their DNA and still get this effect.
They stopped testing after they separated the DNA and the donors by fifty
miles and still had the same result with no lag time, no transmission time.
Scientist Braden thus surmises that living cells communicate through a
previously unknown form of energy, energy that is not affected by time or
distance. Braden posits that this
energy is a non-local energy that already exists everywhere and always.
The third investigation was
conducted by the
This experiment was followed up
by testing patients who were HIV positive. The
research discovered that the feelings of love, gratitude, and appreciation
created three hundred thousand times the resistance to the virus than was
present when those feelings were absent. (1)
In all three experiments, the
results went far beyond the effects of electromagnetics.
Gregg Braden and other scientists theorize that these experiments confirm
a newly-recognized form of energy by which all of creation is connected.
This energy appears to be a tightly woven web that connects all matter.
So, in essence, we are able to influence the whole web of creation
through the energy or vibrations of our emotions, feelings, and consequent
actions. Thus, we can help to create
the future into which we always are moving.
Fear will help to create one kind of reality, love another.
Scientists have dubbed their
findings “The Isaiah Effect” because, in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah’s
prophecies of the catastrophic destruction of
Perhaps the prophets were not issuing forecasts of the future but holding before their people the possibilities and telling us that we have within us the capacity to choose and effect what is to come as life and creation continue to unfold. Time, then, is not just about the past, present, and future. It also has depth that holds all possibilities. What possibilities actually get activated and come to pass is determined by the collective energy, vibrations, prayers elicited by our feelings and hopes. One writer says that “the feeling in prayers, not the words, is what influences the unseen universe. We breathe life into our prayers through feeling…It is the silent language of feeling that allows us to become portals through which Heaven can pass to Earth. Hidden in the mists of our ancient time, we each have a memory off this silent, powerful language that connects us to one another, to the cosmos, and to (God.)” (2) Perhaps that is why Jesus said that it is not for our many words that we shall be heard in prayer.
In God, all things indeed are
possible, but they are determined not by an intervening deity but by the
children of God ourselves acting on and influencing the web by which all
creation is tethered together. We
celebrate Jesus as one who chose and felt in great harmony with God.
One of the most famous examples
of “The Isaiah Effect” arguably occurred on Friday, November 13, 1998 when,
with the help of the world wide web, a mass prayer was implemented on behalf of
peace in conflicted parts of the world, particularly in
“The Isaiah Effect” suggests
that the feelings and resulting actions of people, focused, can have a direct
and discernible effect on the world. Statisticians
have determined that the square root of one percent of a particular population
is all that is needed for the threshold of a choice to have its effect.
In a city of one million people, for instance, all it takes is for one
hundred people to make their focused presence felt.
That sheds new light for me on the story in Genesis of the time that God
threatened to destroy the city of
Our scripture today pictures
poetically a coming time when there will be no need for aggressive restlessness
in the world, a time when the world can be at trustful rest. (3)
In harmony with the God in whom we live and move and have our being,
there will be no need for anxious greed. The damning and damaging disproportions
that wreak havoc on the world and in our communities will be forsaken, given up,
put away, in the interest of making life work for all people.
Such a vision threatens those on the top of life now, but, even for them,
there is now no peace, no rest, for they must always be on guard to protect
their “things.” Such a vision
that Isaiah offers, and that Jesus lives, finally liberates for it yields a
world rife with righteousness, with right-relatedness, and such a world can be a
world at rest, its guard down, its joy up.
We place a premium on knowledge,
and knowledge is a good thing. But
it was Albert Einstein who said, “Imagination is more important than
knowledge.” So Isaiah helps us
to imagine a world alternative to the one we now experience.
And Jesus shows us how we might implement the vision.
We can feel and think and act in our lives in such a way that is in
harmony with God that the whole web of creation can be moved and transformed and
enlightened. How deliciously and
hopefully ironic that all the tanks and bombs and artillery and greed the world
can muster ultimately and finally are powerless in the face of such things as a
cube of bread and a cup of wine fully embraced.
Amen.
© Copyright 2007 First Presbyterian Church