With over 800 pages, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, by Daniel Yergin is keeping my attention. History, data, and environmental consequences are discussed. Movers and shakers are quoted.

I’ve been introduced to Roger Randall Dougan Revelle (1909- 1991). A scientist and scholar, Revelle joined the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and later remarked, “It was revolutionary. Nothing that we expected was true. Everything we didn’t expect was true.”

Previous expectations that the ocean floor was flat and tedious were thrown out as mountains, canyons, and lakes were discovered under water.

Human expectations can throw us off. We expect our partners to be perfect. We expect our jobs to make us happy. We expect religion or science to give us truth. We expect God to punish sinners.

How about explore instead of expect?

Exploration allows us to base our decisions, not on theories and suppositions, but on analysis of actual data.

Partners aren’t perfect. Partners can figure out how to get along and bring out the best in one another. So, relationships can be deep yet magnificent.

Jobs do not make us happy. People are happy at their jobs. Apparently, as a happy attitude is brought to the job, happiness is shared and felt.

Religion and science have never given us truth because truth has to be discovered. Truth is constantly being discovered even through the venues of religion and science.

Sinners punish themselves, or are punished by other human beings, or get away with sin.

Data is constantly indicating a power or influence unknown to human beings. Everything from an eclipse to a germ to an atom, data broadcasts an unknown. This doesn’t mean the unknown is unknowable because data also proves unknowns become known.

God can be known. Leaving behind our human expectation about God, we can find a God of spiritual Love, highly principled, with an existence that expresses health, happiness, and purpose through us.