Like water and oil?
by Susi Moser

My friend Melanie sent me a letter a couple of weeks ago, addressed to Dr. Susi Moser / Union of Buddhist Scientists – a funny and fortuitous little modification of my real – well, proper – professional affiliation. I chuckled a bit – half in delight, half in cynicism – as I opened the envelope, thinking of the grand total of two members of that new "organization."

The Union of Concerned Scientists, my employer, is a partnership of scientists and citizens combining rigorous scientific analysis, innovative policy development and effective citizen advocacy to achieve practical solutions to a handful of pressing environmental issues. We pride ourselves with the solid reputation of being a credible, non-governmental non-profit where sound science is the basis of all our policy advocacy – be it on nuclear safety, global warming, or the use of antibiotics in poultry and livestock production. And while we have worked with religious groups on a number of projects over the years, it seems we’ve always been rather shy about letting any spiritual motivation shine through our own work. We are clearly morally motivated as our name suggests – whether as parents for the sake of our children or as civic-minded folks for the sake of our communities, society and world. But if there are any religious or spiritual underpinnings to that concern, we typically keep that private. So do I.

Except … with Melanie. She and I are relatively new friends. Mel worked for UCS for some time in my stead while I took a leave from work. When I returned to my job, she and I overlapped for two days, during which she was supposed to catch me up on what’s been happening and hand me back my old and a number of new projects.

So we had many meetings over those two days – true meetings, that is. Being pretty efficient in transmitting the facts, the folders, and the finished products, we soon found ourselves in deep conversation, philosophizing, exchanging sacred poetry, and dreaming up a world in which science and spirituality are not like water and oil: never mixing, one floating on top of the other. We mirrored in each other the dream of not living split (sometimes almost schizophrenic) lives. We discovered how much we both craved for answers of how to stay sane and centered, connected with our Core, while responding to the many places in the world that are aflame with violence, degradation, and – most of all – unconsciousness.

Those amazing two days were over far too soon. Mel returned to what sometimes feels to her like the stuffy hallways of academia, researching some intricate aspects of cloud formation over Antarctica, while I’ve settled back in to studying climate change and its impacts on our environment. Meanwhile our hungry conversation continues across the continent.

In one recent e-mail she sent me Thomas Merton to remind me of the sanity and nonviolence that lies in a more humane pace when things get particularly frantic and harsh. I, in turn, remind her of her passion for the blue ice, the penguins, and the wide-open sea when she gets lost in satellite images, measurements, and modeling algorithms. In conversation, we stop doing and remember to be, and in that reconnect with That Which Begins Beyond Analysis, That Which Pervades All That We Love.

In between e-mails and letters, I seem to have similar conversations at almost every table I gather with friends – homemakers, business people, educators, doctors, artists, ministers. We all, it seems, struggle with a similar disenchantment of our jobs, however deeply passionate we are or once were about our particular Work. I am inspired by these private conversations, and I wonder why we are not more public with them. I am relieved to not be alone in these struggles, and wonder why we are not more openly outraged about a world in which we apparently must compartmentalize our selves in order to be credible, effective, safe.

A few days ago, I sent another letter to Melanie at work, addressing it to "Path of Most Meaning." I just heard that she got it.