Growing up, I was captivated by the stars above our backyard smack dab in the middle of Mississippi. When darkness settled on the face of the earth, I was out there aiming my little telescope toward the heavens. With only a small window of sky between the pecan and magnolia trees, I was able to see enough to start dreaming about becoming an astronomer.
When I was fifteen, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, and the space race was on in earnest. You could see that scudder through my homemade observatory, and neighbors would wander into my backyard for a glimpse. I upgraded this hobby by grinding the mirror and constructing a bigger telescope for peering even deeper into that wide open space above us. I entered college to major in physics and astronomy and graduated a religion major headed for seminary.
When you move from peering into space to prayerful reading of religious texts, you develop a crick in your neck and confusion in your heart and mind and soul. This switch was also a realignment of concerns and concepts. For example, I remember thinking as a kid that the church seemed to have all the truth on its side to convince you that creation took place in six or seven days nearly five thousand years ago. Then science used geological and astronomical facts to show that it was created over eons.
While appreciating the factual features of astronomy and the other sciences, I came to understand that many of the truths of the faith were not quite what they seemed. I discovered more mystery surrounding God than the verifiable truth. So I turned my gaze from the heavens to the earth where I began to see all sorts of mysterious miracles that opened up a whole universe within me.
Over my rather quick three quarters of a century of circling the sun, I have found many centers of warmth which are smaller than a mole hill under my feet and larger than any mountain I’ve ever seen. Realizing that all of us are children of the universe, composed of carbon that started back at the Big Bang, that’s enough to warm the cockles of your heart ‘til kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Or maybe we can’t see what’s been here forever.