Faith of Our Fathers
The Astronomical Wonders Stories Collection No.4The world began, so I am told, in wonder and awe.
Can you imagine a primordial universe, a mighty gaseous nursery spewing forth light and power, a blaze of galaxies hurled forth to the ends of time and space? Can you imagine the light of creation, how impenetrable it would have been, how unreal to our eyes?
What if you could glimpse a tiny fraction of that light? Our forefathers were treated to such a glimpse most nights of the year.
When I was eleven, the skies of Walnut Creek, California were ablaze with light. Not anymore. Nighttime light pollution has dimmed our sight and loosened our connection to the natural world. Once in awhile, when we find a patch of earth far from humankind’s creations, we remember again how tiny we are in the vastness that we can see. One night on the Modoc Plateau, I was photographing the Milky Way. I thought the Milky Way was a wispy thing trailing across the sky. I left the shutter open for 50 seconds. The image was richer than what I could see with the naked eye. The dust lanes appeared on the camera screen. Distinct features of our galaxy intrigued me. I left the shutter open for a full minute and a half and was astounded at the richness and complexity of our galaxy alone. Two minutes: mind blowing! I got adventuresome. My camera was mounted on a small drive that kept it polar aligned so that star trails would not appear. In increments of one minute, I began to expand my view of the universe.
When I reached the five minute mark, my view of the universe was altered irrevocably. What my rods and cones could not record, the camera sensor could record! Oh my God! I had no idea there were that many stars we cannot see, even in the darkest skies. And I had only glimpsed a tiny fraction of our own galaxy. What if we realized our smallness and the vastness beyond our reach: might not we live in awe of whatever had brought such magnificence into being? Might we not realize that we are made of a little stardust infused with subtler strains of the light of creation? That night on the Modoc Plateau, I glimpsed the tiniest fraction of the light of creation. I wondered what my ancestors felt when they glimpsed God’s light show nightly.
I wondered that night at the vastness of the heavens: I wondered how I might fashion a life that reflects awareness of such immensity beyond measure in the cosmos. I sat and reflected upon my connection and awareness of my connection, my being made of the stuff of the universe. How remarkable that stardust could become aware of itself! Might there be more to the stuff of the universe than we have quite considered? A universe capable of becoming aware of itself? A conscious universe? Now that is mind blowing!
