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One of the most serious challenges a person of faith confronts is the classic tension between faith and reason, religion and science. Some people live thoroughly and comfortably in one realm or the other. Some travel back and forth (perhaps only on Sunday mornings). So when I encounter someone who lives thoroughly and comfortably in both realms, I pay attention—as I do to John Polkinghorne, an Anglican priest and one of the world’s most distinguished physicists (see the interview with Polkinghorne in this issue).

Ordained an Anglican priest after a career as one of the world’s top quantum physicists (his work helped lead to the discovery of the quark), John Polkinghorne vigorously argues that science and religion are not at odds: “Science looks to empirical evidence and bases its theories on being able to explain that evidence. Religious belief, at least Christian belief, looks first of all to the general evidence for the existence of God in the wonderful order and fruitfulness of the universe, and second to the way that Christians believe that God has made God’s nature known in Jesus Christ.”

There were two great, abiding mysteries in my life when I was a young boy; mysteries that I puzzled over for years but never solved. I discovered them while lying in bed trying to fall asleep. Bedtimes are convenient for adults but they may or may not align themselves with the sleep patterns of a child. I was an overactive boy who had a hard time convincing his cerebral cortex to shut down after a day of full-throttled activity.