We ARE already IN Space
Let us take a closer look at our home planet. We usually experience it as stationary because that is what our five senses tell us. But if we could stop for a moment and reflect, we will realize that we are moving, rather spinning, and yet staying put…that is a huge mystery worthy of adoration.
The Earth spins around its axis at the speed of 1,037 miles an hour at the equator. It takes 24 hours to spin around once. The rotation makes our days and nights. But as we spin, we are also on another circular journey as we orbit around the sun. Traveling at the speed of 64,800 miles an hour, this second journey takes 365 days to complete. In that annual pilgrimage around the sun, we travel 584 million miles — with no oil change or tire rotation. Ponder the grandeur of that wonder!
This moving planet is huge. But compared to the sun, Earth is very tiny. The sun is 1.3 million times bigger than the Earth, but compared to Antares, the 15th brightest star in the sky, which is a1,000 light years away, the sun is a pixel. It is a mind-boggling mystery.
Back to Earth. It weighs a gazillion tons, and a normal calculator doesn’t have enough digits for that. The surface is 300 million square miles; there are 7.7 million species of animals living on it.
And the amazing thing is that this huge Earth with everything in it is not attached to anything — nothing below, nothing above, nothing in front or in back, except deep dark endless space — and yet we don’t fall off or spin out of control. We don’t deviate from its preordained orbit because, if we deviate by one inch closer to the sun, we will be incinerated; one inch farther, we will be frozen to death. To me that is one of the greatest mysteries and miracles that God has created.
Just go to the beach, look at the vast ocean and endless sky and contemplate the Universe, and if your eyes bulge with tears and your heart pounds with wonder, and you feel a deep sense of awe, you are having a spiritual experience. You are connecting with God, the creator of the Universe. Such an awareness of distance, speed, and order creates a sense of mystery and wonder.
Astronauts and cosmonauts who have had the privilege of seeing the Earth from space were always moved by its beauty, majesty, and fragility. It is called the overview effect, a phrase first coined by space writer Frank White in 1987. It is a feeling of awe for our home planet and a sense of responsibility for taking care of it.
As he gazed down on the home planet, astronaut Edgar Mitchell said: “On the return trip home, gazing 240,000 miles of space towards the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving, and harmonious. My view of the planet was a glimpse of divinity.”
Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins described his planetary experience in these words:
“If I could use only one word to describe the earth as seen from the moon, I would ignore its size and color and search for a more elemental quality, that of its fragility. The earth appears fragile, above all else. I don’t know why, but it does.”
Perhaps what we need is a trip to outer space to have our eyes opened, to see the sacred behind the secular, to recognize the sublime beneath the superficial, and the fragility under its firmness. But you are likely to dismiss that dream because you cannot afford a ticket on Spacex.
But wait a minute. We are already in space.
We don’t have to pay a million dollars to Elon Musk for a seat on Spacex or beg Jeff Bezos for a seat on his Blue Origins. We don’t have to lift our bodies from the Earth to see the beauty and the splendor of God’s creation. We only need to lift our minds, open our eyes and widen our hearts. But that is the problem. Our minds are small, our eyes are closed, and our hearts are hardened. We don’t need to go up in a space shuttle called Discovery to see the beauty and magnificence of our planet.
All you must do is plant your feet firmly on Earth, uncover the holy ground, and discover holiness all around you.
(from Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life)