September 12, 2013. The Creamery.

At The Creamery in Palo Alto, an old-style soda fountain and coffee shop, the three counter staff wore T-shirts emblazoned with encouragements. The first proclaimed: Fuhgetaboutit. The second announced: It's going to be all right. The third said: It really does matter. Thus fortified, and having refueled on iced tea and apple pie, I walked a few doors up the street, to Bell's Books, where I bought Teilhard de Chardin's 'The Future of Man.' $7.50. I read Teilhard in my student days, and always wanted to study him more deeply. His understanding of evolution in theological terms (and of theology in evolutionary terms) appeals to me, and convinces me that the reductionist scientistic delusion (the notion that science "explains" everything) of our time is not the last word in our understanding of the universe.