A brave and startling truth

Voyager 1. February 1990. Pale, blue dot.

Forever humanity has been inspired and humbled by contemplating the universe - especially the night sky which reveals the full dimension of an infinite world. The Psalmist writes:

"When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers-- the moon and the stars you set in place-- what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority-- the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents. O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!"

This Psalm has been reason for pondering, source of gratitude, inspiration, and astonishing widening of our horizon. It always helps me to step out of my own story or the story of others and contemplate the larger picture. This contemplation is about the grandeur of divine Mind and about the insignificance of the human condition. We have spiritual sense to grow beyond our smallness and discover our spiritual design.

This reasoning has been fired up by images not just of the universe as taken from earth --- but also by images of earth taken from space. The famous "pale blue dot" image is an example. This photo shows earth from an approximate distance of 6 billion kilometers or 40,5 AE, done from the Voyager. It was Carl Sagan who had asked the Voyager 1, after finishing its primary mission goal, would be turned 180 degrees and take a series of wide-angle and telephotos.

Within the wide, wide dimension of the universe, our planet earth dwindles into one cosmic event like billions of others. It is hard to fathom but possible now, to see how challenges and problems seemingly insurmountable shrink into the proverbial tempest in a teapot. 

When I see this image, I am so ready to learn more and discover more. To somehow get out there and --- well, learn. I am so very grateful to Mary Baker Eddy who discovered the Allness and Onliness of a divine Intelligence, the supremacy of a Mind outside of mortal being. Everyone is equipped with spiritual sense, a sense for Spirit and its truthful and intelligent nature, and this sense carries us outside of mortal concepts into the wide open of a logical and intelligent creation. Aren't we as Mind's ideas the true extra-terrestials, as someone once wondered?

​Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power except that which is derived from Mind. If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name."
(SH 143:26-31)

​This understanding of the infinite dimension of Life leads to a resilient and reliable love for humanity like nothing else. Jesus lived this to the t --- and many of those individuals who followed in his footsteps, People like Maya Angelou. The image of the "pale, blue dot" will lead to humility, kindness, and a deep love for God and man. What this sounds like in the words of Maya Angelou you can listen to in her wonderful reading of her poem "A brave and startling truth" at the 50th UN anniversary.

Voyager 1. Photo February 1990. "Pale blue dot".