We ended up having a half-hour conversation about the size of the universe, trying to wrap our heads around it. "The nearest star to us is Alpha Centauri, and it's over 4 light years away. That means that if we could travel the speed of light (which we so far cannot), it would take over 4 years to make the journey," I explained. "But the universe is a massive place - there are entire galaxies out there that are hundreds of light-years away." We got online and discovered that there are at least 66 galaxies (each with hundreds or thousands of suns) within an 11 million light-year range. There are more beyond that range.

I pulled up the website for the Hubble Telescope. The gorgeous images showed galaxies and nebula in quantities that made our heads hurt. Just how big is this universe?

As a boy, I remember lying in the summer grass with friends, staring up at the starry sky, and wondering about it.... wondering about ourselves. I'm glad Megan is looking up too, even if it's through the internet.

It is so easy to get lost in ourselves, to get caught up in how smart we are, how much we can do, how much we know, how powerful we are. But we are merely a droplet in this huge ocean.

The question, "Is there intelligent life out there," is really asking, "are we all there is?" And I suspect we are not. I have trouble thinking that God's creativity stopped (or began) with us.

Most of humanity's problems can be boiled down to some form of self-centeredness: greed, lust, pride, the quest for power. Maybe we need a few more nights peering into the starry sky, feeling a mixture of awe, curiosity, and humility.

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written by Emilee Causey, September 25, 2009

just amazing!

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