In her newest book, In the Eye of the Wild, Nastassja Martin recounts the aftermath of being attacked by a grizzly bear while she was engaged in anthropological work on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.  She writes eloquently and insightfully about her feelings, the way of the landscape, and the joy, and challenge, of venturing into the unknown.  Along the way, she makes this observation:  "I say there is something invisible that impels our lives towards the unexpected."

    Although we could take this thought in any number of ways, from affirming the natural ebb and flow of the rhythms of the universe to positing the presence and activity of a personal God, broadly speaking, we can nonetheless draw out this much.  We live in a universe whose depths we do not fully understand.  We are very small creatures in an immense cosmos.  We have very little ultimate control over our lives, and certainly no say over the day of our passing.  We live in the grip of forces, perhaps even presences, which elude ready definition and comprehension.

    Whether or not we call these forces or presences God is not the point.  It is rather that we fool ourselves if we suppose that we will, one day, know all things.  Or that we can predict or establish everything that will happen.

    Human understanding is only as certain as that through which we see it.