{"id":33452,"date":"2021-04-24T00:01:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-24T07:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=33452"},"modified":"2026-06-06T12:44:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:44:57","slug":"hopeful-realist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/hopeful-realist\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hopeful Realist Is Keeping Me Company These Days"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"hopeful-realist-contemplates-the-pinwheel-galaxy-NASA\"<\/a>
A hard-headed realist looked for evidence of God’s existence — and found it in places closer to home than the Pinwheel Galaxy. Hubble Image, European Space Agency and NASA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Full disclosure — I’m not sure what to write about these days. Jon has been gone nine weeks, and I haven’t even begun to get used to this new life of mine, let alone write about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

My moods and feelings change day by day and hour by hour. Sometimes I feel busy and normal — when I’m talking to the contractor about redoing that brick walkway<\/a> in our back yard, for example.<\/em><\/p>\n

At other times all I can feel is the emptiness.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, this week I dug into the “Case of the Human Condition” archives and looked for a\u00a0 story in need of a fresh read.<\/em><\/p>\n

And here’s what I found — a post about Geoff Machin. <\/em><\/p>\n

Geoff is one of the interviewees in my book “Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

And he’s just the right company for me at the moment: He is fully aware of life’s cruelty, but he has spotted some light in the desolation. <\/em>I think of him as a hopeful realist.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post starts with a pithy quote from Geoff.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Human beings are the only living things that know they exist and ask why. We\u2019d probably have more fun if we didn\u2019t ask so many questions, just go to the beach and have a beer.<\/p>\n

Well, some of us do bother about these things, we live with the questions. That is God in us, I think. That is the extent to which we are made in God\u2019s image.<\/p>\n

The very fact that so many people push toward a meaningful basis for their lives is, to me, evidence of God\u2019s existence. — Geoff Machin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like\u00a0what Geoff says here.\u00a0I like to believe that the sacred is at work in the world. And I don\u2019t mean\u00a0in extravagant, show-offy ways (miraculous deathbed cures, multi-million-dollar wins at the lottery, elevator doors that open before one has had a chance to press the up-button).<\/p>\n

Our Choices Matter<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I\u2019m thinking of a leading force that invites us to be our generous, compassionate\u00a0selves. A spirit that assures us that we matter and that therefore, by golly, our choices matter.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s what Geoff means when he talks about \u201ca meaningful basis\u201d for our lives. And I like the fact that Geoff thinks this way. He\u2019s\u00a0 a scientific type, a hard-headed, hopeful realist \u2014 a retired neonatal pathologist, born in England, who grew up in the Church of England and studied at Oxford.<\/p>\n

Nature Bloody and Competitive<\/strong><\/h5>\n

He\u2019s a realist who believes that Alfred Lord Tennyson got it right when he suggested that nature is \u201cred in tooth and claw\u201d \u2014 bloody and competitive \u2014 and that most creatures walking (swimming, swarming, floating, flying) around on this planet are not much interested in anything beyond where the next meal is coming from.<\/p>\n

Yet Geoff also believes that we human beings are capable of a selflessness and a desire for meaning that belie our animal nature \u2014 and these qualities originate in the sacred.\u00a0Which is what makes him a hopeful realist.<\/p>\n

Geoff may be a hopeful realist. I’m not sure I am right now.<\/em><\/p>\n

More about my “Wrestling with God” book at “Wrestling with God on the Shores of Lake Michigan.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"hopeful<\/a><\/p>\n

I like to think of Geoff Machin as a hard-headed realist. A hard-headed — hopeful — realist is just the right company for me these days. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,13,14],"tags":[103,34,2459,1796,85,2460,2461,2419,53],"class_list":["post-33452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","category-widowed","tag-aging","tag-dont-miss","tag-existence-of-god","tag-faith","tag-geoff-machin","tag-hopeful-realist","tag-realism","tag-widowed","tag-wrestling-with-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33452"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49498,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33452\/revisions\/49498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}