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Stepping
Stones to Creation
Delivered by
Bruce Arnold, March 12, 2006
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, New Bern, NC
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
The universe -- well, to say the least, the universe is immense. Really, there is no word adequate to describe its size.
Psychologists say the human mind can only comprehend numbers into the thousands. Long before you get to even one million, a common number these days, you have entered the realm of pure abstraction. We can work with numbers this large, mathematically, but we do not really understand them.
The Sun of our solar system is itself 93,000,000 mi. from earth. Its light, traveling at about 659,000,000 mph, takes three minutes to reach our planet. That alone is more distance and speed than I can manage, and the Solar System is minuscule, as astronomical measurements go. The next closest system is over two years away at the speed of light. Astronomically, that star, Proxima Centauri, is on our front porch.
Since the power of the intellect is inadequate to comprehend all this, I would like to suggest a practice which may help you experience the vastness of our celestial home.
I find this works best when the sky is mostly clear, but with the few puffy clouds, and the moon is in the first quarter of its cycle between the new in the first quarter, as it will be during the first week of April.
Go outside right around sunset and gaze towards the clouds in the West. Get a feel for how high the clouds are above the earth's surface. Then get a feel for how far away they are from you over the curve of the earth's surface. Don't try to calculate this; look at it, feel it. The farthest clouds will be hovering over the earth well beyond the horizon that you see. Where do you think they are? For instance, if you are in Oriental, would somebody in New Bern or Havelock see the clouds directly overhead? Or if you are in New Bern, would those clouds be overhead in Trenton, or Kinston? Take some time to absorb this, say two or three minutes.
Now, with the same mindset, get a feel for the fact that the earth is rolling the part where you stand away from the sun's light. We all know, academically, that the sun is not sinking below the horizon but that the horizon is turning away from the sun. Experience it now. If it helps, hold a ball up to your side at eye level and rotate it. See how the shadow sweeps along its surface.
When you've gotten this far, look at the moon. Very early in its cycle, you may see the whole moon glowing faintly behind the bright sliver of reflected moon light -- the old moon in the new moon's arms, produced by sunlight reflected from the earth. See the moon as a globe, not as a flat object against a flat backdrop, the curve of the crescent following the curve of the surface. The ball may be a help once more if you hold it so the shadow and light form the same crescent as of that on the moon.
The moon's orbit is in roughly the same plane
as that of the earth and other planets revolving around the sun. If you do this exercise at different times of the month and year, you will begin to get a feel for the reality of that orbit.
At the same time in April, the planet Mars will be a bright, reddish object in the sky somewhat to the south of the moon, and somewhat higher in the sky. If you use your extended finger to trace an arc from the spot on the horizon where the sun set, up through the position where the moon is, and continuing on the same arc to the south, you will find the planet Mars. With binoculars or a telescope, you would see that Mars has crescent, very similar to that of the moon, although closer to that of the moon at the time of the first quarter, because it is farther away from the sun in the sky.
Since all the planets are in more or less the same plane, if you continue that same arc with your finger around to the east, you will find the planet Saturn. You would need very powerful binoculars or a moderately powerful telescope to make out any detail of this distant planet; Galileo, using his primitive telescope, could make out the shape of the rings, but could not tell that they were not an actual part of the planet. If you have never seen the planet Saturn in a good telescope, with the beautiful display of its rings, you are missing something worth seeing. If enough people were interested, and if we had a site with a sky sufficiently dark to make viewing worthwhile, we could set up my telescope
so people could take a look. Nonetheless, even if you don't have an instrument of sufficient power, you can still note that Saturn is there -- it will be the brightest item in that area of the sky at that time -- and, by comparing with the moon and Mars, get a feeling for the similarity of the planetary orbits.
Let your mind skip like a stone across water along the plane of the planetary orbits, from the earth to the moon to Mars to Saturn. Don't think about it; don't calculate it. It is a plain fact, right in front of your nose, there for you to look at. Suddenly something will fall into place, and your mind will comprehend the vastness of celestial mechanics, and you will never see the sky at the same way again.
If this does not produce some feeling of awe and wonder at the size and splendor of the universe we live in, I don't know what will. For the rest of your life, you will be able to recapture this experience within a minute of viewing the moon, a planet, or even faraway clouds, and your mind will automatically experience some sense of wonderment at the intricate, orderly, immensity of the cosmos that we call home.
No words I could say could ever express this feeling; you have to feel it for yourself. It may take some practice, but only a few minutes for a few evenings. The effort will be richly rewarded. I urge you to make the attempt.
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