Hymn to God, My God, in my Sickness

There is a wonderful book (or there was, my copy must be at least thirty years old, it may be out of print) called New Mexico Place Names A Geographic Dictionary, edited by T.M Price. I was looking at it earlier, just skimming it for places I know or looked interesting, and I came across the entry for Trinity.
Now for those who dont know, Trinity (or Trinity Site) is an area of White Sands Missile Range.
The range was originally ranch land the government siezed for a weapons test site during WWII. On July 16th 1945 the area of the 3,200 square mile range that is now known as Trinity Site was the site of the worlds first atomic explosion, when J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team from the Manhattan Project detonated the "gadget" under the code-name Trinity.
In New Mexico Place Names the Trinity listing says that the name had no particular technical significance, according to Oppenheimer, but was named from a poem, Hymn to God, My God, in my Sickness by English poet John Donne. The referenced line was printed and it really struck me, "As in East and West in all flat maps - and I am one - Are one, so death shall touch the Resurrection".
I can easily imagine the meaning such a passage would have had for Oppenheimer, as his concern and reservation about such destructive power grew towards the latter days of the Manhattan Project. The entire poem, in fact, seems as though it could have been -

HYMN TO GOD, MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESS.


SINCE I am coming to that Holy room,
Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music ; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before ;

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my south-west discovery,
Per fretum febris, by these straits to die ;

I joy, that in these straits I see my west ;
For, though those currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me ? As west and east
In all flat maps—and I am one—are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific sea my home ? Or are
The eastern riches ? Is Jerusalem ?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar ?
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place ;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me ;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in His purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord ;
By these His thorns, give me His other crown ;
And as to others' souls I preach'd Thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,
“Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down.”

Although Oppenheimer was not raised religious, I have always speculated that he was very spiritual and looked upon that in crisis as a strength. I admire that a great deal.
As someone comes so close with death, as in the act of creating a means for it (and such a great means the atomic weapon) the emergence of the spiritual is very interesting. The ties between the two go much deeper than human morality, or our need for guidance. The two are wed, parts of the same great spiritual whole. The universal truths that can help guide us when in such places of darkness can be found in many sources, and I admire someone with the strength and knowledge to have sought them out, recognized them and drawn them to himself in times of need.
When the first atomic weapon was detonated at Trinity Oppenheimer watching from a distance intoned a phrase from Hindu scripture in the Bhagavadgita, "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds."