new church life: jan uary/february 2016
these three; it was harmony. Harmony
between faith and science; work and
home; truth and love; harmony among
people and harmony among species.
Her learning to play the violin as a
child taught her about how things
work together to create harmony, and
so did the diatoms of the Chesapeake
Bay.
And to keep things in balance and
harmony you need to find their center.
To Sherri that center was what she had
found as a teenager. Keeping the Lord
at the center helped her find a harmony
of love and truth, religion and science,
home and work. Now she, as the good
benthic diatom she was, would never
insist that others share her views. But
her belief in one Creator led her to
believe that all of creation, including
humankind, and all creatures great and
small, even in this world and the next, have a lot in common.
In the sparkling diatoms under her microscope, in their selfless, angelic
service to the planet, in the balance in which so many of them lived, in their
variety and sheer beauty and amazingness, she saw divine and heavenly
qualities reflected. All around her, in her husband and children, in faculty
and students, in her friends, in the mud of the Pamlico River with its shells
and stones and shark teeth treasures, in the richest of locations where the
flowing fresh water meets the undulating salt tide, in simple sunlight and lifesustaining water, she saw the face of God.
When it was time to go, she went peacefully. On Monday, November 23,
although she had been somewhat agitated earlier in the evening, her breathing
became calmer, then quieter, then intermittent. Dave and Zia and Anji by her
side realized at 11:23 p.m. on 11/23 that she was no longer breathing. When
the hour met the day and the day met eternity, she lay gazing steadily into a
high corner of the room, with a peaceful expression and an inextinguishable
light in her eye.
(For information about the new Dr. Sherri Rumer Cooper Research Fund
– and how to contribute to it – see pages 74-75, as well as the Bryn Athyn
College website, www.brynathyn.edu.)
In the sparkling diatoms
under her microscope,
in their selfless, angelic
service to the planet, in
the balance in which
so many of them
lived, in their variety
and sheer beauty and
amazingness, she saw
divine and heavenly
qualities reflected.
All around her . . . she
saw the face of God.
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