“Does anyone believe the galaxies exist to add splendor to
the night sky over Bethlehem?”
A simple question that Dillard poses yet one that is so very
difficult to answer. The figures Dillard gives to precede this question state
there may be as many as eighty billion galaxies in existence, each housing at
least one hundred billion suns. They are also over thirteen billion years old…how’s
that for perspective. We are such a proud species with our technology and
scientific progress yet what do we really know? We, who occupy one planet orbiting
one sun and only have for such a short period of time yet we have the audacity
to proclaim we know the secrets of the galaxy and secrets of God, who made us
in his own image? How? How can we stand so tall on that pedestal? Could we even
handle the alternative? Dillard proves nothing else in her book if not that
life is fleeting and fragile. 138,000 living, breathing people can disappear in
a single moment and did on April 30, 1991 almost one year exactly before I was
born. It did not matter how rich or powerful they were how much “stuff” they owned;
they were all equal in death. But then what is the point? What do we work so
hard for? Why do I spend hours of my short time on this planet in a state of
high stress over a tiny black letter on a piece of paper? Do the stars truly
shine only for us? But then…maybe that’s the answer: the stars. Something so
vast, so awesome and so completely unknown yet we appreciate them above all
else for their beauty. Each of those stars could have their own earths with their
own intelligent masses and we may never know but we do know what a starry night
looks like. Is that enough for you? I think it may be enough for me yet how can
one truly conceptualize that eternity? Dillard seems to offer only clouds and
numbers as sources of solidarity. Startling and stark. All I have at this point
is questions but for now that will be enough, questions and stars.
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