a story lives forever
Register
Sign in
Form submission failed!

Stay signed in

Recover your password?
Register
Form submission failed!

Web of Stories Ltd would like to keep you informed about our products and services.

Please tick here if you would like us to keep you informed about our products and services.

I have read and accepted the Terms & Conditions.

Please note: Your email and any private information provided at registration will not be passed on to other individuals or organisations without your specific approval.

Video URL

You must be registered to use this feature. Sign in or register.

NEXT STORY

That narcissistic feeling

RELATED STORIES

A sense of wonder
Sherwin Nuland Surgeon
Comments (0) Please sign in or register to add comments

In recent years, I've met several environmentalists… two in particular, actually a married couple, John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker, who have joint appointments at the Divinity School and the Forestry School. And as I talked to them about their great love of the environment, what comes through, without having to delve at all for it, is this great sense of wonder at the universe, at Nature, at what a human being is, at what came before the Big Bang and how it fits with this great reverence that they have for Nature. And both of them are devoutly religious people. They believe in evolution, everything that any scientist believes in. They continue to believe in the power of an eternal God. And I have always had enormous respect for people of deep faith.

My wife is a woman of deep faith. I can understand where that comes from, in her and in other people, of deep faith. Of course, a lot of people of supposed deep faith are hypocrites, unfortunately, which gives a bad name to everybody, but it has to do with this sense of wonder, which to me is completely in Nature, completely in biochemistry and physics… and I don't have to have anything else to explain it.

But in those people, it extends to the wonder of what they conceive of as God.

Sherwin Nuland (1930-2014) was an American surgeon and author who taught bioethics, the history of medicine, and medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine. He wrote the book How We Die which made The New York Times bestseller list and won the National Book Award. He also wrote about his own painful coming of age as a son of immigrants in Lost in America: A Journey with My Father. He used to write for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, and the New York Review of Books.

Listeners: Christopher Sykes

Christopher Sykes is a London-based television producer and director who has made a number of documentary films for BBC TV, Channel 4 and PBS.

Tags: Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grimm

Duration: 2 minutes, 6 seconds

Date story recorded: January 2011

Date story went live: 04 November 2011