Francine Thompson

that's why I think of myself as a person of faith and why my mantra is, I don't know. Because to presume to know, to presume that I can order the universe or understand all of the powers at play, or that I understand or know or can predict with absolute accuracy, everything that's going to happen or that we live in some sort of mechanic,... See more

I don't know, it's just a place to rest really, honestly. It's a place to rest outside of certainty. Try it. You might find it deeply, deeply comforting, even though it promises to resolve absolutely nothing.

But I recognize why that level of order and certainty is very reassuring, as is this idea that you do a certain amount of things and you end up getting your reward, your just reward at the. But as we all know, that is not life. Life is not a simple math problem. It's not algebra. It's far, far more complex. And I think staying because we don't need... See more

the universe conspires with you. It doesn't select you, you're not special, but it conspires with you when you put yourself in motion.

But I think in our time, those of us who grow up in doubt, who accept scientific skepticism as a foundational part of our worldview, also are drawn again and again to kinds of faith, to spiritual practice.

That’s what I always think when I’m working on a project and it’s not working. I think — I will speak to the idea and say, “You came to me for a reason.” But in the meantime, I’ll come to my desk every day with the faith that you are also at my desk every day and that the two of us — this human being who is laboring and this mystery who is... See more

It's like an undeniable reality. It's not a question of like what you believe in or how adherent you are to your faith. This is just, there's a divinity baked into all of us and, the and also that there are all these false binaries or these systems set up as oppositional.

But it affects my own feelings about the universe, because I think it’s demonstrative of the possibility that you can be completely committed to a rational, if you like, material explanation of existence, of why — how we got here, without being committed to a reductive account of our own experience. You can believe that there’s a completely... See more