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Between the cracks
By Bobby Neal Winters
These days, in addition to my other activities, I am pastor of the Methodist Church down at Opolis. We pray, sing, read scripture, have a message, and then eat breakfast. There is always enough food for whoever comes. It’s sort of like the feeding of the five-thousand except that we have biscuits, gravy, sausage, eggs, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, grits, ham, and fruit instead of just bread and fish. I don’t think anyone has ever brought fish, but then no one has ever complained.
Over breakfast, I listened in on a discussion between a couple of the elder statesmen of the church, Bill and Ken. They were discussing some old graves Ken has found on his land. There are a few stone markers there with dates on them going back to the 1830s. Ken can see indications of about 40 other graves and Bill has witched out that the cemetery is about 30 graves by 30 graves in size.
“You’ve witched it out?” I asked, wanting to be sure I understood.
“Yes,” Bill replied. Then he explained to me that, in addition to his many other abilities, he is a water witch.
You may recall me writing about Bill before. He attempted to teach me poker before I decided the lessons were a little too expensive. As Bill is so good at poker and is given to having a puckish sense of humor, I’m never quite sure how to take him, but this is one of those occasions where I believe he is serious.
If memory serves, I remember Dad telling stories about how Grampa Sam could witch. My wife Jean, who was educated as a scientist, has had personal experience with water witches.
On the other hand, a quick googling of the Internet will find all sorts of statements that claims by water witches—also known as dowsers—do not stand up to the claims of scientific scrutiny.
The witches make no claim that the practice is repeatable.
“Not everybody can do it,” says Bill.
The current situation seems to be as follows: (1) There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the claims of water witches and (2) water witches keep finding water, pipelines, lost objects, and graves.
I will confess right here and now that water witching is something I want to believe in, and so I have to be careful in thinking about it. Some would refer to this as the scientific method, but I would prefer to call it intellectual integrity.
Science has its own methods and its own language and has been particularly successful in its endeavors. It sees very well what it’s equipped to see and discusses very well what it’s equipped to talk about. Yet there are areas where it falls short and one of those would be a discussion of love.
Some say that what we call love is just a chemical state of the brain. It exists because it has survival value for the species and has been selected for by evolution. A mother sacrificing herself for her young isn’t nobility; it is just an expression of the evolutionary mechanism. If it hadn’t by random mutation been introduced, the species wouldn’t have thrived. So love isn’t really anything but atoms.
If there isn’t anything to love but a particular chemical being released in the brain, then we ought to just distill that chemical and start taking it recreationally. It’d save us all the bother of falling in love, having babies, and the like.
Yet there is a school of thought that believes in an existence of love beyond any chemicals associated with it. There is a belief that love exists beyond the natural state and its full study is beyond the reach of science. Love is more than atoms and the void.
In other words, there are things that are beyond the reach of scientific scrutiny. There are things that require philosophy, poetry, music, art, and, yes, religion to explain, or, if not explain because not everything can or should be explained, to discuss.
There are things that fall between the cracks of science. Indeed, the cracks of science are so large as to be an abyss. Any scientist worthy of the name will agree to that without a blush.
Where water witching falls, I don’t know, and I may never know, but I am okay with that.
(Bobby Winters is Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Mathematics at Pittsburg State University. He is also pastor of the Opolis United Methodist Church.)
By Bobby Neal Winters
These days, in addition to my other activities, I am pastor of the Methodist Church down at Opolis. We pray, sing, read scripture, have a message, and then eat breakfast. There is always enough food for whoever comes. It’s sort of like the feeding of the five-thousand except that we have biscuits, gravy, sausage, eggs, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, grits, ham, and fruit instead of just bread and fish. I don’t think anyone has ever brought fish, but then no one has ever complained.
Over breakfast, I listened in on a discussion between a couple of the elder statesmen of the church, Bill and Ken. They were discussing some old graves Ken has found on his land. There are a few stone markers there with dates on them going back to the 1830s. Ken can see indications of about 40 other graves and Bill has witched out that the cemetery is about 30 graves by 30 graves in size.
“You’ve witched it out?” I asked, wanting to be sure I understood.
“Yes,” Bill replied. Then he explained to me that, in addition to his many other abilities, he is a water witch.
You may recall me writing about Bill before. He attempted to teach me poker before I decided the lessons were a little too expensive. As Bill is so good at poker and is given to having a puckish sense of humor, I’m never quite sure how to take him, but this is one of those occasions where I believe he is serious.
If memory serves, I remember Dad telling stories about how Grampa Sam could witch. My wife Jean, who was educated as a scientist, has had personal experience with water witches.
On the other hand, a quick googling of the Internet will find all sorts of statements that claims by water witches—also known as dowsers—do not stand up to the claims of scientific scrutiny.
The witches make no claim that the practice is repeatable.
“Not everybody can do it,” says Bill.
The current situation seems to be as follows: (1) There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the claims of water witches and (2) water witches keep finding water, pipelines, lost objects, and graves.
I will confess right here and now that water witching is something I want to believe in, and so I have to be careful in thinking about it. Some would refer to this as the scientific method, but I would prefer to call it intellectual integrity.
Science has its own methods and its own language and has been particularly successful in its endeavors. It sees very well what it’s equipped to see and discusses very well what it’s equipped to talk about. Yet there are areas where it falls short and one of those would be a discussion of love.
Some say that what we call love is just a chemical state of the brain. It exists because it has survival value for the species and has been selected for by evolution. A mother sacrificing herself for her young isn’t nobility; it is just an expression of the evolutionary mechanism. If it hadn’t by random mutation been introduced, the species wouldn’t have thrived. So love isn’t really anything but atoms.
If there isn’t anything to love but a particular chemical being released in the brain, then we ought to just distill that chemical and start taking it recreationally. It’d save us all the bother of falling in love, having babies, and the like.
Yet there is a school of thought that believes in an existence of love beyond any chemicals associated with it. There is a belief that love exists beyond the natural state and its full study is beyond the reach of science. Love is more than atoms and the void.
In other words, there are things that are beyond the reach of scientific scrutiny. There are things that require philosophy, poetry, music, art, and, yes, religion to explain, or, if not explain because not everything can or should be explained, to discuss.
There are things that fall between the cracks of science. Indeed, the cracks of science are so large as to be an abyss. Any scientist worthy of the name will agree to that without a blush.
Where water witching falls, I don’t know, and I may never know, but I am okay with that.
(Bobby Winters is Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Mathematics at Pittsburg State University. He is also pastor of the Opolis United Methodist Church.)
