Wonder

Beneath the night sky, immensity spread above me. Lights in hundreds, thousands, myriad upon myriad; streamers, sheets and points of light spanning miles beyond counting, distances to be measured only in the time it takes fleet-footed light to travel them. Stars turning gas into matter so dense that it burns with fusion light, pouring forth torrents of energy that burn and illuminate and shine. Galaxies, wheeling and turning while earths are born and die, apparently unregarded. Forming archways in the sky, bubble surfaces around voids of emptiness unparalleled.
Myself on the hillside, earth against my back, flesh and blood and bone lying on a speck of dirt that loops one light among billions. Daytime comes, and I look into a pond, seeing the tiny creatures flitting, insect larvae devouring their prey and being devoured in their turn. Smaller still, the algae, tiny plants drinking up light and spinning bodies from gas and water. Within these tiny cells, elegant membranes separate elaborate molecules from one another; fats, proteins, sugars built one on another into life. And, smaller still, atoms forming the matrix; and, within even atoms, particles still smaller and finer, down and down the scale until the ultimate tiny thing is reached – the Planck length, a tenth of a hundredth of a thousandth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millimetre.
Structures so large that they blow my mind. Things so small that I can scarce imagine.
A universe so large that humanity seems tiny beyond notice or care.
A universe containing things so small that I am a Colossus striding the Earth.
And, in the centre, is humanity, living and learning and believing and striving.
Is a Man, born to die and yet reaching forth, proclaiming that he is Alive.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 2:43pm on 22 September 2004
Category: Dreaming, Faith