“I am a scientist, but I am not a swinging bob on a string.”  

       – Alan Lightman, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

I’ve just dived into Alan Lightman’s new book, which begins by describing a transcendent experience on a starry night off the coast of Maine. You can find winks of this feeling everywhere – walking by the ocean, meeting the gaze of a newborn baby, hearing a chorus in harmony, leaning against a redwood…. Lightman’s goal is to embrace this feeling of transcendence while also embracing science.

We live in such an either/or world.  Would you like to be athletic or brainy?  Smart or kind?  Spiritual or scientific?

Dear Honeybees, the next time we are faced with a ridiculous choice, let’s pick “and” instead.

  * Right, those are snowflakes and not stars… because it’s April in Massachusetts.