Looking To The Sky For ‘Necessary Food For The Human Spirit’
A conflict-weary world breathed a collective sigh of wonder this week with the release of the first images sent back to earth from deep space by the James Webb Space Telescope. It was a moment to stop thinking about the war in Ukraine, our struggle with gun violence and our simmering political divisions. We could see ourselves as part of a universe far vaster and more mysterious than we have yet imagined.
Seeing those images from a million miles away from earth of what the universe looked like billions of light years ago and of stars being formed was like looking at the past, present and future all at once. It reminded me of St. Augustine’s theory of totum simul (everything at once )— the idea that time is a continuum and so we live at once in an eternity of past, present and future in the here and now.
As I reflected on the violet-hued circles and jumping points of jeweled light in the galaxy group Stephan’s Quintet (where the angels of It’s A Wonderful Life were supposed to have lived), I couldn’t help sensing in my heart what the Irish poet and theologian John O’Donohue calls the universe’s “eternal echoes.”
Whenever I feel despair over the news or overburdened by my own workload or personal concerns, I step outside to look at the night sky. The sight of the moon, stars and planets never fails to lift my mood. Last week, brought the gift of the year’s brightest moon, the July Super Buck Moon. It shone in the night’s vast darkness like a small sun.
Last month, Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, Mars and Saturn shone together in formation, like school children lined up in a single file, in a celestial phenomenon that happens only every few decades. It occurred as the nation mourned the deaths of school children and their teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. It was a comfort to rest for a time amid the natural order of the universe. During that time, my petty concerns and the world’s seemingly intractable problems seemed lost in the vast continuum of time.
One can argue that 20-year effort and $10 billion spent to build and launch the Webb telescope would have been better expended on feeding the hungry, building housing for the homeless and resettling refugees. I’m more concerned about $634 billion the Department of Defense is expected to spend on maintaining our nuclear arsenal over the next nine years. Indeed, the U.S. still spends more annually than any other nation on nuclear arms — weapons, if we’re lucky, will never be used.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson observes that space exploration is born out of a communal quest for knowledge and one of the few issues with the power to unite our politically divided country and conflict-ridden world.
“Humanity’s drive to discover does not belong to one political party. Rather, it’s a hallmark of the American story and a catalyst for unity,” Nelson said.
When families are gunned down watching a Fourth of July parade and young African Americans die daily in our inner cities, when civilians continue to perish in Russia’s tragic war of aggression against Ukraine and with Covid an ever-present threat, it’s natural to wonder, “Where is God?”
Seeing the dazzling clusters of light in the SMACS 0723 galaxy (reminiscent of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night Over The Rhone”) or the towering gas walls of stars emerging in the Carina Nebula reinforce for me God’s presence in this ever-unfolding universe.
Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory outside of Rome rightly called the Webb images “necessary food for the human spirit … God’s creation being revealed to us.”
This week, when we feel our faith in God and our fellow human beings faltering, let’s turn our eyes skyward. Let’s rest in the comforting company of the universe.
