Note: This "fish' parable is not original to me; it's been used in a number of ways to explain the questions raised by quantum physics, and Iâ??m paraphrasing the core: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/How-the-Higgs-Boson-Was-Found-213876841.html

Two fish, mathematicians by trade, were sitting in a bar one day bemoaning the complexity of life.  Why, they wondered, did it have to be so hard to explain what looks to be so simple.  After all, both these fish understood that there were very simple, very elegant equations that physicists (or fishycists, perhaps) had developed that were easy to understand and easy to explain---until somebody moves or tries to lift something.  When that happened, the physicists sharpened their pencils and began changing the simple equations in order to try to explain what was happening when a fish moved.  Still, no matter how hard they worked, no equation could be discovered to explain all the variables.

In the middle of their conversation, a third fish came in and bellied up to the bar.  "What if,â? this third fish said, "the simple, elegant formulas are right?  What if itâ??s not the formulas we got wrong but the environment?  For example, what if thereâ??s something IN THE ENVIRONMENT that changes everything?  A clear fluid, for example."  His companions laughed him out of the bar.  Untilâ?¦

â?¦years later, when a brilliant fish managed to leap out of the lake and realized this third fish was right!  They were living their lives in WATER! 

The story of the fish is the story of humans, too.  After centuries of messing up simple formulas to explain things like mass:  What makes things feel heavy when we try to lift them?  When someone suggested perhaps it was a force we hadnâ??t yet discovered that was as prevalent as water to a fish, he too was "laughed out of the bar.â?  Untilâ?¦

â?¦this year, when the Higgs-Boson field was finally â??discoveredâ??:  Out there in space and down here in the city and the country, there is a force that impacts movement and mass (and more). 

But wait!  Now that we know that force is out there, weâ??ve also discovered that it canâ??t explain all the mysteries:  In other words, there is another force---perhaps even forces---out there, also.  For example, the presence of one force explains mass, but it couldnâ??t explain spin.

And if thereâ??s another force out there, might there be more than one?  A bigger thought:  Might we discover soon, that one of those "otherâ? forces is sentient, meaning it actually thinks and reacts and responds.  In other words, might one of those unexplained forces actually be the omnipotent (meaning everywhere at once) presence of God? 

And this is just one place where science and faith may one day prove to be chasing the same truth.

Donâ??t even get me started on "dark matterâ? (the nearly 60% of space in a room---or the atmosphere or universe---that we now know exists but we canâ??t yet see) and Jesus repeating "the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.â? 

Stay tuned as we discover together more ways science and faith may be helping each other in their search for truthâ?¦and God.