Penetrable

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. – James 4:14b (NRSV) 

One day in 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen was messing around with a cathode ray tube in his lab at the University of Würzburg when he noticed something odd. Whenever the tube was turned on, a nearby screen would start to glow, even when all visible light was blocked. When he held his hand up against the screen, he saw the weirdest shadow: not just the shape of his hand, but an image of its insides, bones and all. 

When he reported his discovery of X-rays, the world went nuts. Not because of all the medical uses to which they would be put. Not because their discovery eventually birthed quantum physics.  

It was because we had thought we were solid, and it turns out we aren’t. We believed we were fortresses: that only what we welcomed got inside, unless overthrown by force. Suddenly, we learned we are supremely penetrable; the world passes through us all day long, like somebody walking through a mist. 

Radio waves, microwaves, neutrinos: all just mosey along on their way through the universe—and you—and don’t even notice you’re there. Nor do they cause trouble for you.  

Not everything can pass through you without damage, though: alpha and beta particles, gamma rays, Röntgen’s X-rays, neutrons. Not to mention envy, malice, covetousness, cruelty, derision. Such things do fundamental damage on their way through. 

Legislation, lead, and concrete do a pretty good job of shielding us from the problematic particles and radiation. 

What do you do to shield you from the rest? 

Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, come. Enter in and make me impermeable to the worst the world has to offer. Amen.

About the Author
Quinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Learn more about it and find him on Facebook at Quinn G. Caldwell.