I'm the sort of person who looks at the vastness of the universe and is comforted, rather than terrified, by my own smallness and relative insignificance. I've always told my boys that one of my dreams is to go up into the atmosphere in a rocket ship and look out a window at the Earth in space. I'm so drawn to astronauts' words of that experience, and this morning, when I read my friend, fellow writer and mother of a child with epilepsy, Christy Shake's post, I was inspired.
I feel at turns disgusted and terrified at the havoc wrought in the name of power, religion and territory in the Middle East. As the Hamas rockets fly and the Israeli bombs return, I deflect the insanity with a sort of bitter humor. That'll show 'em, I might mutter, when I read the leaders' threats. This show of force will surely be the end of all conflict.
There's nothing new under the sun, is there? The Old Testament had it right, at least there.
I wonder if the Universe -- whatever force inherent in it -- looks at our beautiful blue and green globe and sees it as insignificant, just a speck in a vast continuum.
I too am comforted by our smallness in the vast expanse of space. It reminds me to live more lightly. I need that.
ReplyDeleteNope, nothing new. The older I get, the more a sense of deja vu, the 'haven't we been here before" that feels so frustrating, and so inevitable. We just can't seem to learn to step off the wheel of suffering.
ReplyDeleteit's all a choice, isn't it? The Earth witnesses our madness and continues to give us her bounty. And her beauty.
We are so akin in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteYes.
It comforts me, too, to realize my speck-ness. It's easier to let go of my truly minor, piddly-assed little "problems" when I remember how short my time is here on this earth, and the only thing that makes me think I matter is the nattering of my tiny human brain, which has such a huge ego that it leads us arrogant humans into devastation and ultimately (I believe) into annihilation. So let's love each other and eat ice cream whenever we want, find kindness where we least expect it, celebrate this teensy little nano-second of our existence.
ReplyDeleteI feel much more cheerful now, don't you?
Love you, my dear Elizabeth!