July Letter from Pastor Don
At the end of the dock, jettisoned out onto Nancy Lake, looking up into the dark, dark night sky of the northern woods in Wisconsin, is one of my favorite summer memories.
I follow Brian Cox, an English professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, and on Instagram he was asked, “What is your favorite fact about the universe?”
“This is an easy one, I think,” he said.
But his answer wasn’t easy to wrap my mind around. In fact, I’m still thinking about it. I've even thought about it while lying on that dock in Wisconsin.
“The size of the universe!” he said. He went on, "the bit we can see, which is called the observable universe, has between 1 and 2 trillion galaxies (based on surveys of the observable universe), and that’s just a small patch of the total universe. And let’s say each of the 2 trillion galaxies is roughly the size of the Milky Way Galaxy (our galaxy), which has 400 billion stars—it takes over 100,000 years for light to cross our galaxy—and this is just one of what could be an infinite number of galaxies in all directions.”
He concluded with this (maybe he knew what he was saying was mind blowing),
“I always say, you know, don’t get worried about this because nobody can picture it. It is impossible to visualize the scale of the universe.”
Too late! I was already trying to visualize it, understand it, or make sense of it. Which, of course, I cannot! The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Sometimes, the more I investigate the incomprehensible infinity of the unknowable, the less I know, and the more I lose myself. Richard Dawkins, renowned atheist, wrote, “we reside in a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, and there is at the bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”
But David, in Psalm 8 wrote, “You have set your glory above the heavens… When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.”
It is interesting how a dark summer sky of infinite galaxies can at one time be an abyss, and another, amazing; can be a cause of indifference, and an opportunity for inspiration. It all depends on how you look at it, I guess.
Each day I continue to see faith as being less about having everything explained and more about the fragile beauty of trust. Anglican Priest and author, Rev. Christopher Wright, in his book “The God I Don’t Understand” wrote, “It seems to me the older I get the less I think I really understand God. Which is not to say that I don’t love and trust God. On the contrary, as life goes on, my love and trust grow deeper, but my struggle with what God does or allows grows deeper too.”
What I’m beginning to realize is this: sometimes I like wrestling with the incomprehensible idea of the infinite, and sometimes I just like looking at the stars and thinking… WOW!!
Happy stargazing!
Pastor Don
I follow Brian Cox, an English professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, and on Instagram he was asked, “What is your favorite fact about the universe?”
“This is an easy one, I think,” he said.
But his answer wasn’t easy to wrap my mind around. In fact, I’m still thinking about it. I've even thought about it while lying on that dock in Wisconsin.
“The size of the universe!” he said. He went on, "the bit we can see, which is called the observable universe, has between 1 and 2 trillion galaxies (based on surveys of the observable universe), and that’s just a small patch of the total universe. And let’s say each of the 2 trillion galaxies is roughly the size of the Milky Way Galaxy (our galaxy), which has 400 billion stars—it takes over 100,000 years for light to cross our galaxy—and this is just one of what could be an infinite number of galaxies in all directions.”
He concluded with this (maybe he knew what he was saying was mind blowing),
“I always say, you know, don’t get worried about this because nobody can picture it. It is impossible to visualize the scale of the universe.”
Too late! I was already trying to visualize it, understand it, or make sense of it. Which, of course, I cannot! The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Sometimes, the more I investigate the incomprehensible infinity of the unknowable, the less I know, and the more I lose myself. Richard Dawkins, renowned atheist, wrote, “we reside in a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, and there is at the bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”
But David, in Psalm 8 wrote, “You have set your glory above the heavens… When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.”
It is interesting how a dark summer sky of infinite galaxies can at one time be an abyss, and another, amazing; can be a cause of indifference, and an opportunity for inspiration. It all depends on how you look at it, I guess.
Each day I continue to see faith as being less about having everything explained and more about the fragile beauty of trust. Anglican Priest and author, Rev. Christopher Wright, in his book “The God I Don’t Understand” wrote, “It seems to me the older I get the less I think I really understand God. Which is not to say that I don’t love and trust God. On the contrary, as life goes on, my love and trust grow deeper, but my struggle with what God does or allows grows deeper too.”
What I’m beginning to realize is this: sometimes I like wrestling with the incomprehensible idea of the infinite, and sometimes I just like looking at the stars and thinking… WOW!!
Happy stargazing!
Pastor Don
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