I am so humbled by the wonders of the universe. Today I truly realized how small I am in context of the universe. A quote from Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan has enamored me for years, but tonight I felt it:
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
“The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Wow. Just wow.
I’ve never felt more insignificant. I mean, I know the Solar System is heliocentric, but I guess I’ve always had a geocentric mindset. By this, I mean to say I’ve magnified my problems. My thoughts, my ideas and my entire selfishness, became my world. In the past, I would have never called myself a narcissist, instead focusing my energies on other people. Those who are close to me realize I’ve had the opposite trouble of being a push-over.
But imagine! In this vast universe, I am just a dot. Everything my mind could ever conceive is on a dot. There is so much more to explore, and it has nothing to do with my existence. In a way, I feel I am denying my existence to humble myself in context of the universe. I am nothing but a pixel on a dot. In context of time, I am a femtosecond. Just a flash of existence in history.
Yet I think about myself all the time. I think I am so important. I have so many worries and anxieties and prides. I’m not ashamed of this. It’s only human nature to instinctively think of the self. Especially in the city, there is hustle and bustle. There’s getting from here to there and battling traffic. There’s also light pollution. Because of that we can only see the sun and moon and sky. We literally cannot see beyond ourselves. We’re polluted with life. When there are obstacles, we cannot see beyond ourselves…we cannot see past the sky (literally).
Take all that away. Take away all the lights and busyness and chaos. Just admire what’s out there. Realize that you’re not alone. There’s fusion in stars that creates SO MUCH energy that it emits the light and warmth you feel from the sun.
…
And that’s just one system.
Like. The one natural system that man can understand (to an extent) and control (to an extent.)
…
Imagine. God created all this. God created all the universe for man to explore. This is the universe I just wrote about.
It baffles me that the more man explores the depths of the universe, the more he loses his belief in God. It’s almost as if man feels more control with nature and therefore does not need a God to take control away from him. For example, scientists know so much about the intricacies of the universe, yet they refuse to believe a God created all this. These scientists can formulate all the functions of the universe, map out its history, and predict future events. Believing in God removes their confidence in a nature they control. They can humble themselves before a gorgeous universe, but not the God that created it.
God is not part of this system. He is supernatural. He is too holy to be observed, yet man thinks he can find Him. Man thinks he can prove God. Well, let me answer it for you: He’s not here! He’s above his creation.
The more I understand nature, the more I feel God. It’s strange that it’s opposite for many scientists. I am just so full of wonder when I see things like this!:
It is so important to praise the God that created the wonders of the universe. I feel so insignificant to the physical universe…but in the context of God’s love to create this universe…I am in awe. (It took me a while to find a word for that.) Just awe. Humble yourselves in Creation, for you are only human. You are not superhuman, just a product of God who also created the universe you reside in.
To paraphrase Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz, wonder is the best form of praise.
