As a priest, I have several must-reads in my life each week. I need to read, for example, the scripture passages for the week so that I can prepare my sermon. I need to read the weekly e-communique from the diocese, so that I know what’s going in the wider church—to that end, I also read the parish newsletters from the various local congregations in our region. I need to do regular spiritual reading to feed my soul. And I need to read the Tuesday Morning Quarterback column each week on ESPN.com. If you’re not familiar with the column, it probably provides the most illuminating analysis of football games and football culture on the internet, but it also provides so much more. That’s because it’s author, Gregg Easterbrook, it more than your average football columnist. He is also a senior editor of The New Republic, has written articles for Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Wired, and Beliefnet, and he’s been a fellow at the Brookings Institution. His brother, Frank Easterbrook, is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where he was a colleague of Sonia Sotomayor.
So in his column Easterbrook also talks about the economy, popular TV shows, American Culture, and our knowledge of the universe. It was one of these last items that brought him into my sermon this week. Every year at this time, Easterbrook wants to remind his readers of the majestic scale of the universe. This year, he begins by noting that a new study reports that researchers now believe there are at least 100 billion galaxies. He continues, “This recent study led by Yale University cosmologists found there exists at least three times as many stars as previously thought. The star count is now at 200 sextillion [stars], a number that is very hard to conceptualize. That's a two followed by 23 zeros. What's a two followed by 23 zeros? The universe, thought to be 14 billion years old, has not yet existed for 200 sextillion seconds. Get this: The universe has not yet existed for a thousandth of a percent of 200 sextillion seconds. And stars are still forming -- even in our neighborhood.
Easterbrook writes a great deal about the unknowns of the universe. He speculates, with tongue in cheek, that some cosmic explosions that we witness at a distance might be great intergalactic wars that will someday come to a theater near you. But his regular discussions of the grandeur of the universe are not flights of fancy. He wants to instill in us a wonder, and awe at the vast, intricate, beautiful creation of which we are such a small, small part. (Again, remember the 200 sextillion stars.)
But he doesn’t do this to make us feel small. He goes on in his article this week: “To us, the universe seems immensely old; compared to itself, the cosmos glistens with the dew of morning. The present universe might exist hundreds of billions of years, if not forever. Creation contains at least 100 billion galaxies and far more stars than there are grains of sand. Don't let this make you feel small. Quite the contrary; it should make you feel important. Life is what grants the immensity of the universe meaning. Who can say what the purpose of the cosmic enterprise might be?”
This last question may be the most important one. What is the purpose of this cosmic enterprise? But I want to think about the thought right before that first. “Life is what grants the immensity of the universe meaning.” How is that? How is the little blip of life that we’ve realized on this one small little planet meaningful in the midst of the 200 sextillion stars? Even if we grant that in this immensity there may be other forms of life—it’s statistically probable at this point----still, life barely registers in a cosmic perspective.
One answer is that life---or more particularly, human life—rational life, feeling life---we don’t simply exist in this vast universe, but we are able to exist in relation to the universe. We can know the universe, we can be in wonder at the universe---we can even give thanks for the universe—and that’s something. To ask if the universe, or if we have meaning---that’s a question that comes only with life. Sun, moons, stars, planets----they don’t ask about meaning. We do. In our knowing, in our loving the universe, we grant some modicum of meaning.
And that’s good, but is that it? Is that the sum total of meaning—that for a few thousand years out of 14 billion, a few billion people---and it’s interesting, isn’t it---when we talk about budget deficits, numbers like billion and trillion seem so big, but from a cosmic perspective and numbers in the sextillions, a billion is infinitesimally small. So is that the sum total of meaning of the universe---that for a little while, some people knew it existed and thought it was cool?
The story of the nativity of Jesus suggests that this is not the sum total of meaning. That there is something more. That what matters is not so much my capacity to know the universe, but rather the desire of the universe to know me—or more precisely, it’s about the desire of the one who can actually count the 200 sextillion stars, the one who can name them, who conceived and ordered each one—who created them----the story of Jesus’ birth suggests that we find meaning in the truth of that One choosing to know me—you—us---to come down to this little place to know us.
That’s a lot of the story that Luke tells at the beginning of his gospel. He begins his narrative of Jesus’ birth with the vast scope of the world---with Empires and world rulers and great decrees---he begins with the vast scope of the world, but he quickly zooms in tightly to such a small space and such small people---a small town, a tiny stable, a manger, a poor couple and a few shepherds. The effect is even more remarkable if we zoom back even farther, to the 200 sextillion stars---and then we hear the angels’ proclamation—that in the midst of this vastness and grandeur, the one who overshadows the vastness has come into its midst---he’s come right here, to this little stable as a very small one---as a baby---he’s come down to join us, to know us---to connect us to this vast cosmic grandeur in the most intimate and personal of ways.
What set me off on this series of thoughts was the intersection of Easterbrook’s article with the continual loop of O Holy Night this time of year. It may be the most beautiful Christmas Carol, and at least as of yet, I haven’t tired of it. And there’s that one line that always catches my attention:
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
We are, frankly, quite small—we negligible in the vast scope of the universe, and I don’t know that it’s obvious that we have a meaning. But the Creator of the universe seems to want to tell us that we do---that our souls have a worth equal to the grandeur of the 200 sextillion stars.
Why that’s the case? For me, that’s mystery. As Easterbrook writes, “Who can say what the purpose of the cosmic enterprise might be?” Even more, who can say why the author of this cosmic enterprise cares about us so deeply---why this stable in the middle of nowhere becomes, at least for an evening, the very center around which the 200 sextillion stars now turn? But that’s Ok with me, that I don’t know—that I can’t even begin to fathom an answer to this. For now, for me the wonder is enough---the wonder at the universe---the wonder of the life of this child in its midst---the wonder that I’m noticed, that I’m loved, that I matter on a cosmic scale. For me, for now, that’s enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment