Marie Curie

Marie Curie is responsible for developing the theory of radioactivity, which is a term she also coined. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (1903) and the first and only woman to win twice in multiple sciences.

Her parents were poor teachers, and after the Russian authorities removed laboratory instruction in the sciences from schools, her father pilfered the leftover lab equipment, brought it home, and let his children use it freely. Curie was an intelligent and curious child, largely self-taught, and because she couldn’t go to University because of her sex, she studied clandestinely at what was called a “Floating University,” a secret set of informal, underground classes held in Warsaw.

Marie Curie died of the effects of radiation exposure. She had been used to carrying test tubes filled with radioactive material in her lab pockets. Because of the high levels of radioactive contamination, her papers from the 1890s are too dangerous to examine. Even her cookbooks are considered contaminated. Marie Curie’s research is kept in lead-lined boxes.

From The Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor, November 12, 2016

We fail to see the place of suffering in the broader scheme of things. We fail to see that suffering is an inevitable dimension of life. Because we have lost perspective, we fail to see that unless one is willing to accept suffering properly, he or she is really refusing to continue in the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth.

~Henri J. M. Nouwen

C.S. Lewis, On Living in an Atomic Age

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. "How are we to live in an atomic age?" I am tempted to reply: "Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents."

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors - anaesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things - praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts - not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

I aspire to this:

Gratitude at its deepest level embraces all of life with thanksgiving: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not so holy. Jesus calls us to recognize that gladness and sadness are never separate, that joy and sorrow really belong together, and that mourning and dancing are part of the same movement. That is why Jesus calls us to be grateful for every moment that we have lived and to claim our unique journey as God's way to mold our hearts to greater conformity with God's own...

I am gradually learning that the call to gratitude asks us to say, "Everything is grace." Whether there is suffering or joy, I can say, "Yes, I want to live this, and I want to discover in this more fully the gift of life."

~ Henri Nouwen

It is only the infinite mercy and love of God

 that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces

 and destroying His entire creation long ago.

 People seem to think that it is in some way a proof

 that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars.

 On the contrary,

 consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed 

and lust and cruelty and hatred

 and avarice and oppression and injustice, 

spawned and bred by the free wills of men,

 the human race can still recover, each time,

 and can still produce men and women 

who overcome evil with good, 

hatred with love, 

greed with charity, 

lust and cruelty with sanctity.

 

~Thomas Merton,  The Seven Storey Mountain

Nouwen: My calling

The more I think

about the human suffering in our world

and my desire to offer a healing response,

the more I realize how crucial it is

not to allow myself to become paralyzed

by feelings of impotence and guilt.

More important than ever is to be very faithful

to my vocation to do well

the few things I am called to do

and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me.

I must resist the temptation

to let forces of darkness

pull me into despair

and make me one more of their many victims.

I have to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus

and on those who followed him

and trust that I will know how

to live out my mission to be a sign of hope in the world.

~Henri Nouwen