Invisible Forces

The most powerful forces in the world are invisible. They guide us, constrain us, lift us, hold us together, hold things around us together, and leave us wondering – if we let them. You may think I am esoteric or irrelevant, but I am not. This is basic stuff yet worth recalling, because taking a look around – recalling what we do not see – is humbling, refreshing, oddly fortifying.  Just at thought.

Let me start big, then go small. Leaders in all times have thought they could control life, call the shots. They have called a few, but more are the shots they cannot call. Put aside the nettlesome daily issues, and come with me on a short journey into the universe.

Did you know that the entire world – indeed the whole universe, if you ask scientists – is held together by “four fundamental forces?” They are all invisible, yet quite real. Physicists call them the “strong force,” “weak force,” “electromagnetism” and “gravity.”

Funny too is how these forces work, yet how little we think about them. Gravity is the weakest, yet governs all we do. When we pour a cup of coffee, it does not fly around the room; when we turn on the shower, it does not blanket the ceiling; when we hang up our coat, it does not float, just wander off.

No king or president has ever been able to repeal the law of gravity, nor will any. We may test it, briefly defy it, try to marginalize or deny it, but no political power compares to gravity. We are bound to the earth, earth to the sun, planets to each other, each to all, all to one – rather like humanity.

Odd thing too, gravity’s range is infinite – the entire universe clinging to what cannot be seen, dependent on it, bound by it, much as humans forget they are bound to the species by powerful and invisible forces, a smile across cultures, tear on a cheek, music, musing, forces strong and weak.

Electromagnetism is another invisible definer of our lives, more important than politics, although politicians imagine they can ride the waves. Looking up at the night sky, you might see lightening or the aurora borealis, “dancing lights,” sun’s energy hitting earth’s magnetic field.

Closer to home, you put magnets on the refrigerator, use sticky tape, a compass, get an MRI, turn on a light, listen to the radio, get an x-ray, heat dinner in the microwave. We are swimming in electromagnetic radiation, yet see very little – a slice we call the visible spectrum.

As for those “weaker” and “stronger” (nuclear) forces, they have short range, are subatomic – although the weak force is stronger than gravity, strong force more powerful than the other three. All this invisible stuff, which we never think much about, is explained by “quantum theory” (really little stuff) and Einstein’s “general theory of relativity” (really big stuff). 

Yet in many ways, it is not explained – not any more than human nature can be explained. Those good at math, detection, and smart with telescopes, microscopes, and physics help us understand how these laws work, but even they are hard pressed to make sense of what eludes full definition.

After all, ask a scientist how Earth stays in orbit around the sun, not crashing into it, or how the moon circles our planet, never drifting away or landing in the dooryard – and they will talk to you about gravity.  But ask the next question – what is gravity? Why is gravity? From where does that mysterious thing you call gravity come? How does it really work? Why should it work? Why not otherwise? They will be hard pressed.

And this is the nub of the piece – and of peace. We spend so much time seeking to control what God has placed before us, as if that was our job – managing what predates us, will outlast us, in many ways involuntarily defines us, rather than pausing to ask if something else might be expected.

Sometimes, pausing to reflect on the power the invisible, light to love, stars above, wind in the pines, aurora borealis, sunrise, or sunset – just once – can change everything. It can be humbling, refreshing, oddly fortifying. Sometimes magnificence afar and close at hand, fingerprint or flickering star, wave’s shape, compass dial, gravity’s inscrutability, child’s smile – offers a new perspective.

Sometimes that is just what we need, the incalculable peace of forgetting the frenzy, catching the flow, wondering what is above and below, exchanging worry for wonder, exploring a point of light, remembering how much is beyond line-of-sight.

The most powerful forces are unseen, electromagnetic, gravitational, nuclear, but also empathy, curiosity, love, and slowing time, forsaking noise, indulging wonder, embracing a rhyme. What we see is a lot, what we do not is more. Just a thought.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.