About the Author

I create this web site in deep humility, aware that I know so little about God (Ultimate Reality) and how the universe evolved.   Yet I still have a burning question to know where we came from, as a hint to know where we’re going.  I find the evidence for evolution is overwhelming (having observed it first hand studying evolution of bacteria) and my sense of God's presence continues to grow. The thing I know for sure is that I have received a deep and growing gratitude (what I call grace) in the realization that God evolves, and that the direction of this evolution seems to be toward greater compassion. I first conceived of writing a book about the Evolution of God when my son, Sean, was about five years old. I wanted to teach my son about how we came to be and how this informs our actions. So I began to make him a picture book of the Evolution of God.

As the universe evolves, so does my understanding of it. The following is my personal evolution:

I was born to a former Catholic father and a non-practicing Episcopalian mother. Though neither attended church, they had inherited the ethic to love your neighbor and they shared their love with me, my brothers and cousins and grandparents. 

In fifth grade I learned that electrons circle the nucleus of an atom. This began a lifelong fascination for the reality beyond our senses and my beginning of a quest to find the commonality of all life.

 In high school I was taught that evolution was incompatible with religion and religion was incompatible with science.  I could either fully embrace science or have faith in religion, but not both.  The options presented to me by my community were to: 1) believe the Bible literally and discount evolution or 2) believe in evolution and denounce the Bible since if the literal interpretation of Genesis is wrong, then the rest must be “wrong” as well.

Nature offered a consolation that church did not. Taking my dog, Critter, on hikes along the Platte River soothed my soul.  River trips, guided by my father, bolstered my love of nature.  Red rock canyons, clear blue skies, and lush green river vegetation were magical. 

Yet these magical places were disappearing. By the time I reached college, the rivers that we had run had been dammed: the Rio Grande near Bandolier, New Mexico; the Dolores in southwestern Colorado; the South Platte River upstream of Denver.  

Where I grew up in Colorado, we could walk from our house over fields to the mountains eight miles to the west without crossing roads, fences or people’s houses.  Now, those eight miles are packed with flimsy houses and disposable shopping centers.   Cinderella City, a shopping mall built when I was a child was scraped for the dump by the time I was a young adult.  I have seen the air become reddish brown, creeping along the Front Range of Colorado.   If all this devastation to wilderness could occur in just a short span of my life, what would be the consequences of 100 years of similar and accelerated destruction?

In college I had the great opportunity to study with Dr. Lynn Margulis.  This great evolutionary biologist contributed the theory of endosymbiosis in cell evolution and to the Gaia Hypothesis. If I could not simultaneously follow paths of religion and science, then I would take the road of science. This rational road seemed to offer a more sensible and direct way to serve humanity.

Yet after college I made a detour. I traveled as a pilgrim in the footsteps of Buddha, visiting monasteries and temples in Thailand, Burma, India, Pakistan, China, Tibet, Nepal, Hong Kong and Japan.  The thousand temples of Pagan, an ancient city of Burma, now all but abandoned, filled me with incredible awe of the power of spirit.  Everywhere on these travels, the smiling Buddha statues clearly conveyed the message that compassion and wisdom are the keys to enlightenment and joy. Up to that time, this was the happiest year of my life.

Filled with a deep connection to nature and wanting to understand the deeper relations between all life and to perhaps get a glimpse of Ultimate Reality, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Michigan State University to study evolution.  I chose evolution of bacteria as a model system, because they seemed simpler to study. Vast numbers of these tiny creatures grow in a small space and they reproduce in a short time. My colleagues and I at the Research on Microbial Evolution (ROME) lab studied how bacteria evolved to degrade the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (aka Weed-Be-Gone^TM). I was fortunate to have a wise and patient thesis advisor, Dr. Jim Tiedje, who gave me time, resources and freedom to earn my dissertation while studying the evolution and exchange of DNA among a wide range of bacteria isolated from around the globe.  

While at MSU it occurred to me that God had evolved, just as the microbes in my test tubes had evolved.  The idea was simple enough, but it's taken a long time to properly articulate this idea.

At a Halloween party, I met my future husband, to whom I felt a deep spiritual connection. Together we had a son, Sean Luc, who opened my eyes to the power of gratitude. I renewed my connection to spirit through yoga and dance taught to me by Winalee Zeeb.

On September 11, our world changed.  While packing up our kitchen in preparation for a move back to my home state of Colorado, I saw the planes crash into World Trade Center and saw the two towers fall. After learning that the perpetrators were Muslim terrorists, I turned to the Bible to try and understand why the descendents of Abraham hated each other so.  That reading left me more confused than ever.  A few days later I attended a deep ecumenical service to mourn the loss of victims of 9/11. A Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian all spoke eloquently on behalf of their various religions. The tears I shed during that service seemed to clear my vision and open me to the incredible power of spirit. These religious leaders showed a path of possible reconciliation between all people of all religions. I felt a tremendous sense of hope by the cohesiveness of these leaders and by the solidarity of all people in our country. I had a momentary sense that we in the United States would fight this terrible evil with the most potent weapon of all: love. Although I had no false hope that we could change the hearts of the most hardened terrorists, I believed we could appeal to those who were not so hard-hearted. We would retaliate with strength, compassion and understanding. Our wisdom, compassion and strength would eradicate the hatred and ignorance that fostered the evil of 9/11.

My optimism was short-lived. When our country invaded Iraq my sense of despair was deeper than when the terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center. The terrorists were ignorant and oppressed, feeling cornered and weak like terrified animals who lashed out as a last resort. We in the US were enlightened, the country that people around the globe flocked to and looked up to because we were open, strong, and compassionate.

I am still reeling from astonishment at what my country has done.

Our family returned to Colorado and I found an open-minded version of Christianity, the religion of my childhood, my culture, and my community.  If the spiritual community were like-minded seekers who called themselves Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Atheists or followers of Gaia, I would be with that group.  As it is, the church is Community United Church of Christ in Boulder. 

I consider myself a follower of the historical Jesus, whom I believe to be a model of compassion, wisdom and grace. Historians are still learning much about this man, particularly in light of recently discovered texts.  I understand the Christ Spirit to be the resurrected spirit of Jesus, who lives on in all who love God.  I am in awe of this man Jesus.

The more I learn of Jesus, the more I realize the validity of other paths as well.  I believe that other teachers may be as wise and compassionate as Jesus was, but Jesus is the teacher I know best, the great spirit who inspires many in my culture. 

On Pentecost of 2004, my Grandmother, a devout, loving, and inspiring Catholic, left her body. Her spirit was liberated as it came to rest in all of us who knew and loved her. There are no words of science to describe this event. Perhaps someday science can describe this event as eloquently as the religions do in their language. In the language of Christianity, her spirit was resurrected. In the language of Buddhism, she was reincarnated in those of us who loved her. I am amazed to hear my atheist friends tell similar stories of their loved ones' spirits moving after death.

As I write in late 2004, I am disturbed to read polls reporting that more Americans believe in the literal account creation as reported in Genesis. Yet at the same time, fewer Americans than ever read the Bible.  I hear of people's fear that if humans believe that they descended from slime, this gives them license to behave like slime. 

After beginning my book and this web site, miracle after miracle have occured. So many great ideas and people have come into my life to teach me more about the idea of God's evolution. Recently, and most inspiringly, Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow have told me about their Great Story project. And now I read of Thomas Berry's Dream of the Earth. Wow! Ursula Goodenough's book, The Sacred Depths of Nature encourages me with the convergent evolution of our similar philosophes. Ken Wilbur's books have introduced me to the idea of "holons" to explain the evolution of everything including spirituality. Marian Head and her Revolutionary Agreements inspired me to learn the simple game of "TAG" (Truth-Acceptance-Gratitude) which has the power to transform relationships. Marian introduced me to the work of Barbara Marx Hubbard and her Conscious Evolution. The books and videos of Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry have shared their comprehensive view of the Universe Story. And most recently, the words of Rev. Dr. Pete Terpenning: "the order of the universe is towards compassion," have helped me realize that I have come to view the universe as a friendly place.

In addition to the above people who have made careers thinking about evolution and spirituality, I have found tremendous support in these ideas from friends and family.

Before studying the Evolution of God, I found myself living in dread, fearing for our future: fear that my son's future would be ecological and social disaster with him living in an Orwellian world of Big Brother's constraint. Fear for society that seems increasingly polarized in politics, religion, art. Fear for nature: global warming, the buildup of CO2, pavement of paradise, smogging of the skies.    Now, my worldview has been radically changed and I have deep, satisfying hope. Sure, the problems are all still there, all bigger than I can imagine. Yet I now realize that solutions are waiting to be discovered and they are even bigger than the problems. I now know that the trajectory of evolution is to complexify, to integrate, to become interdependent, to become more compassionate.  These trends are not wishful thinking; they are observations.

I see that the huge perceived disconnect between science and faith has torn people from valuing themselves and the Earth, our protector.  Yet my hope is restored when I think that more and more people are coming to see the Earth as a sacred place, a part of the evolving Universe, and a place to protect because it protects us.

Now I am one of the lucky few to walk from my door a short distance to wilderness. My soul soars each time I journey into the unspoiled hills with their free-running waters.  I want to insure that my son and his great, great grandchildren have similar opportunities to enjoy and be nurtured by such nature.