No matter how old I get, no matter how tall I get, no matter how my opinions change or my goals, one thing that has always stayed the same for me is this: I love to watch the stars at night.
Watching the stars is like watching ancient history. What we see is light that is hundreds of millions of years old. What the stars look like right now is completely different to how they look to our eyes. Even relatively close celestial bodies take minutes, even days for their light to reach us. If the sun were to spontaneously explode in an outburst of light and glory, we wouldn’t know about it for seven whole minutes. Because the universal speed limit is that of the speed of light, time is constrained to that speed. We only know things at the speed of light, which, considering such vast distances and vast expanses that make up the universe, is pitiably slow.
I will never see the light that the Andromeda Galaxy is creating right now. I can only see a 2.5 MILLION year old snapshot.
I do not regret this, just as I do not regret gravity, or water flowing downhill. One cannot regret the will of God.
But how I wish I could bask in the glory of the Crab Nebulae; or sail among the rings of Saturn. How I wish I could just glimpse, for an instant, the light of a newly formed star.
Perhaps when I join the river.
Inshalla.
-Doug
“It means: “As God wills it.”
“I could get tired of that word.”
-The Sword of the Lady (2009)
4 comments:
we should make you a walk to remember list.
- be in two places at once
- see the light of a new born star
- dont die of cancer
jasmine
Holmes: Watson, what do all those stars above us tell you?
Watson: Holmes, they tell me of the vastness of the universe. They tell me of our mere insignificance in the grand scheme of things. They show me a cosmic beauty and organization from chaos. They show me that there truely must be a God to have created this vast wonder. What to they tell you Holmes?
Holmes: Watson, you idiot! They tell me that someone has stolen our tent!
On a more serious note. I too never tire of observing the stars. They intrigue me.
Stars remind me of God.
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