Space is not the final frontier
Mickey's Rooneyverse
Mickey's Rooneyverse
This year, NASA has planned the first crewed voyage to the moon in over 50 years. I remember watching the very first one on July 20, 1969. We had a black-and-white TV set that was so primitive that you couldn’t tell whether the picture was fuzzy or Neil Armstrong had stepped out into the middle of a lunar snowstorm. We watched with awe as the first ever close-up video of the Moon’s surface was broadcast to the world. It was an amazing achievement that was matched only by the video footage, seven years later, of an uncrewed landing on Mars.
This year, NASA has planned the first crewed voyage to the moon in over 50 years. I remember watching the very first one on July 20, 1969. We had a black-and-white TV set that was so primitive that you couldn’t tell whether the picture was fuzzy or Neil Armstrong had stepped out into the middle of a lunar snowstorm. We watched with awe as the first ever close-up video of the Moon’s surface was broadcast to the world. It was an amazing achievement that was matched only by the video footage, seven years later, of an uncrewed landing on Mars.
Nevertheless, despite the impressiveness of the triumph, when I think of the vastness of space, billions of light years of emptiness stretching into what seems like infinity, all I can think of is the song in the hilarious children’s show Animaniacs that runs: “It's a great big universe / And we're all really puny / We're just tiny little specks / About the size of Mickey Rooney …”
As we go about our workaday lives in this world, it is rare for us to take time to gaze up into the void and marvel at the staggering immensity of space and, conversely, how insignificant we seem in comparison. But is space really a void? C.S. Lewis in Out of the Silent Planet, the first novel in his cosmic trilogy, speaks of the interstellar vacuum being inhabited, nay, filled, with invisible life, like an ocean in which stars and planets are simply gaps in the texture, like tiny islands.
Whether that’s true or not, it’s an attractive concept. Was the vastness of space created just for “puny” humanity? If not, what is its purpose? Perhaps God created the cosmos with no other purpose than to express his own beauty, with no utilitarian object in mind. Whatever its purpose, space is a wonderful antidote to our hubris, and it puts our global concerns in stark contrast to the huge, unmanageable grandeur of the universe.
And yet, despite how humbling such a comparison is and regardless of our puniness, inexplicably, God is interested in our small lives. I say inexplicably, but there is an explanation: It’s love.
It took an enormous amount of power, ingenuity, and skill to create the universe and us in it, but it’s not an impersonal force that conjured up the stars. The source of God’s power is love. Indeed, he is love.
In the face of that revelation, what is our response to be? And God’s love does invite a response. Our reply to being loved is to love in return. And how do we do that? Through prayer. The 16th-century priest and writer, Venerable Louis of Granada, insisted that worship and prayer are not optional, but rather a matter of justice (religio) owed to God as our creator.
That’s true, but God doesn’t want our response to be grudgingly dragged from us or given out of mere duty. He tries to woo us. His desire is to convince us that our path to true freedom and bliss is through a dynamic, vibrant, and fulfilling relationship with him.
He created each unique member of the human race out of love. And yet, so often our temptation is to believe that we are somehow less than who he created us to be, that somehow, we are unlovable and unworthy — that is, if we have a discernable relationship with him at all. If we don’t, we can pray that he would reveal himself to us, that he would reach out to us with compassion and allow us to enter into a new life, a life that we were made for, the only life that will bring us happiness.
The next time you have an idle moment, wait for the overcast Michigan skies to clear (this may take some time) and look up at the stars. Take in the enormity of it all and remember that you are not the size of Mickey Rooney but a beloved and precious son or daughter of God, created out of love and for love — as, of course, was Mr. Rooney.
