Samuel E Matteson
Dr. Sam Matteson (B.S., Ph.D.) is a veteran professor of physics at the University of North Texas (UNT) where he was recently named the recipient of the J. H. Shelton Award for Excellence in Teaching, the most distinguished recognition of university teaching at UNT. For ten years he served as Chair of the Department of Physics.
Biographical Information
Samuel (Sam) E. Matteson recieved his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from Baylor University. He extended his education for three additional years at the California Institute of Technology and in Europe at the Max Planck Institut in Garching, Germany and the Central Physics Research Institute in Budapest, Hungary as the Chaim Weizmann Post Doctoral Fellow. He spent eight years in the Central Research Laboratory of Texas Instruments Incorporated as a Senior Member of Technical staff before joining in 1987 the University of North Texas (UNT) where he is a professor of physics.
During his career in industry and academia he was the recipient of the Defense Research Project Administration (DARPA) Award for the Best Technological Breakthrough by a Contractor as well as the Founders’ Medal from CalTech Ions, Incorporated; he was named the UNT Regents’ Lecturer in 2000 and Piper Porfessor Nominee and J..H. Shelton Excellence in Teaching Award recipient in 2005. He has administered over $3.5 million in grant awards and is the author of over 75 scholarly papers and articles. He is a published poet and a writer of creative non-ficiton and fiction.
He currently serves as Director of the UNT Physics and Astronomy Instructional Research (PAIR) Laboratory, a university consortium for research in cognitive science and learning in the physical sciences. In addition to this research thrust he has major investigations underway in musical acoustics in collaboration with faculty and students of UNT’s famed School of Music and in the application of accelerators to interdisciplinary materials problems.
My Personal Story
Two events occurred about a year apart in autumn near the middle of the last century in my reach of the swamps at the lower extremities of that belle of the South, Mobile, Alabama. The reason that they are significant are that the events happened to me. On a Sunday night, November 4, 1956, nine-year-old Sammy Matteson publically acknowledged his faith in Jesus Christ to a small congregation at Hollinger’s Island Baptist Church. Eleven months later he shared with the rest of humanity the sight of the Earth’s first artifical satellite, Sputnik I, orbiting overhead, whizzing by every ninety-eight minutes, beeping its Russian radio greeting. These two mid-century milestones, straightforward though they seem, are symbolic of the trajectory of my life: a conjoining of a committed faith and an awe-inspired wonder at the universe.
Early I hungered to know how the world works. I delighted in each new-won fact or insight. I grew into a scientist before I decided to wear shoes every day. From a barefoot scientist to a teenage skeptic is a small step. Thus, before I learned to drive an automobile I began to wonder if the faith of a child were legitimate in the face of a world bristling with hard facts that poked you from every angle and could not be ignored. I considered many alternatives to the “Jesus Way.” I studied hard. I thought much. I emerged from the storm of doubt two years later persuaded that indeed the way of the rabbi from Nazareth is remarkably reasonable and—more importantly—a most noble and fulfilling manner of life. I had been a believer, but I came out of the crucible of skepticism forged into a convinced believer, a persuaded disciple.
Not long afterward I felt a deep impression that the ultimate purpose of my life was to become a university professor of physics. I did not then know all that that meant, but I was sure that it was the claim of God on my life. By deliberate acts and by a circuitous route dictated by circumstance that took me to Baylor University for a B.S. and a Ph.D. in physics, to Caltech and Europe for post doctoral training, to Texas Instrument as an industrial scientist, I at last arrived at the college campus nearly twenty years ago.
Every decision has its—often unanticipated—consequence; every twist or turn of the track has its own dimly seem destination. Father’s Day eve 1999, I made a fateful decision that forever changed my life and the way I walk through it. It was a small thing. “I’ll lean the ladder more steeply against the house so I can paint a few feet higher up,” I said. I fell. I fell to the concrete ten feet below. In a second, in a heartbeat, I had broken—indeed, nearly broken off—my right foot.
It is not true that your whole life flashes before your eyes when you are in mortal peril, but it is true that your priorities change and your focus narrows, diverted from inconsequential distractions. As I lay bleeding on the patio, I had a conversation with God. On my side it consisted of a groan. For His part , God spoke to my spirit. I did not hear an audible voice. (I am informed that they give Thorazine for that symptom.) Rather, it was a gentle whisper in my spirit’s ear, that to my conscious mind was like observing someone else talk on the telephone and knowing without hearing what the other party is saying. And what did God say? Four words in question: “Do you trust me?”
I thought for a moment and then in a flash reviewed my pilgrimage. How that before I understood much theology I knew God and loved Him. How at the age of nine I realized that that friendship could be and had been broken by my willful rebellion, but that I could set things right by laying down my arms, surrendering and letting God be sovereign. I remembered how, as a teenager, I examined minutely the intellectual legitimacy of a child’s faith and became convinced that Jesus showed by his character who God is and how by him we come to know God, not just as a concept but as an intimate Father. I was persuaded then and later that the way of Joshua of Nazareth is a reasonable and meaningful life. I recalled how God had interacted with my life, time and time again, leading me and giving me strength beyond my mettle. My life had not been without pain or disappointment before but through it all I could look back and see God’s hand on me. I saw my Heavenly Father, never surprised, never caught unprepared, but always waiting with what I needed at every twist and bend of the road. So, at last, I said aloud, “Yes! I trust You. You have proven Yourself faithful.”
The days and weeks and years that have followed that day have confirmed my affirmation. God can be trusted. Whatever life throws at us—and there have been and will be many things that I do not welcome or understand—we can be sure of this. God is there. God knows. God cares for us.
The most important thing in life is knowing God; it is not belonging to a religious club; it is not acting pious; it is not knowing about God. Rather, it is actually know God, Himself, as you might know your foster parent. There is nothing that is secular in life for a child of God. God is potentially present in every conscious act. If you look for God you will find Him if you really are seeking Him with all your heart. You see, God is looking for you, even though He knows where you are.
It is a choice, an act of the will. Can you sincerely say, even if you are skeptical, “God, if you exist, I am willing to trust you, if you will but reveal Yourself to me?” If you will willing seek Him, then He will be found by you. He is not playing hide and seek. He is only waiting for you to want Him. This is my testimony, my matyrion. This is the evidence of my life; I am witness to the power, to the presence and to the compassion of God.
When someday I come to the end of my life among you, I will trust God for the unseen future, not because I have a vision of a glorious afterlife, but because He is trustworthy. He knows me and He loves me—anyway. Though I now walk with a limp, I glory in this journey. Though I know pain, I know joy, as well. Though there is much that I do not understand, I am acquainted with the Almighty who understands all. That is enough to put, haltingly but resolutely, one foot in front of the other and take the next step and the next and the next on this long, winding road of uncertain destination that is filled both with pain and with joy.