I’m on a documentary shoot in Burkina Faso, West Africa right now. In between video shoots I’ve been listening to Walter Isaacson’s new book on Einstein. I just finished it today.
There is such a contrast to be sitting so far removed from modern civilization and at the same time attempting to comprehend the mind and life of a man so devoted to physics and science. Mathematical equations and experiments seem so foreign in this land of mud houses, sun and heat.
Women’s voices and children’s banter form the underscore to the leaves rustling in the wind above me. In this intense solar barrage, one must retreat to cooling shade whenever possible. I’ve found it beneath the verdant branches of a spreading mango tree. A calabash gourd sits next to the women under the tree by the truck. It’s half-full of clear water, pulled from a deep well nearby. Young boys sit on a bench and laugh and play while they intermittently stare at the white man writing and reading in the pickup.
A man just rode up on an old bicycle and came and wanted to shake hands. Greetings are very important here, even if you interrupt someone. After we shake hands he leaned against the truck. His unwashed body odor catches on the breeze and blows in the open door of the truck. Flies buzz about my ankles. A baby fusses. Soon the mother reaches into her blouse and exposes her breast for the child to nurse.
Finishing the Einstein story, I turn my iPod off and contemplate what I’ve read. I’m struck by his view of government and what he advocated. He believed that world government was the only way to avoid war and people taking advantage of others.
From my perspective in the West African bush I can clearly see how true his insights were. It’s only when God establishes universal government that suffering and selfishness that has kept these people in such poverty will end. Their subsistence lives will likely not change as long as there are despots clambering for power ad supreme nations striving to keep their global positions of power.
Einstein’s humble view of God is also inspiring and yet saddening. “A spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe,†he wrote, “a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one, in the face of which, we with our modest powers must feel humble.â€
As he sought to unravel the divine mysteries of the cosmos, Einstein clearly saw God at work in the physical laws and order he discovered in the natural world. In spite of his acknowledgement of God, he did not seem to find Him as the answer to the world’s pain and chaos. He turned to world government and a pure form of socialism as the answer instead. While this is the ultimate solution, it will only come through the Creator that so awed and inspired Einstein.