When human cruelty and depravity depress me and fill me with hopelessness, I look to the mysteries of the Universe and feel awe, strength, and hope again.
This Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine features an issue all about Space—space junk, space exploration, space discoveries and miracles. Did you know that the Webb telescope discovered a 6,000-mile-long plume of water floating around in our solar system?
Water! In space! It’s the stuff of fantastic science fiction. You know what this means, right? That water—our human source of life—is out there, making long distance space travel plausible.
I read stuff like this and think of the destruction in Gaza—how Hamas attacked Israel, and now Israel seems bent on creating a holocaust of its own, and wonder: How can humans be capable of sublime creation and discovery of miracles, and in the same breath, be capable of the basest evil?
Because we are mirrors of the Divine—destruction and creation wrapped into one.
We are mirrors of the Divine—destruction and creation wrapped into one.
The Big Bang took place more than 13 billion years ago. This catastrophic event was the creation of all material existence. Earth was created by gas and dust forming round a young sun. Collisions of great violence of these masses created our planets. There was no intent; it just happened.
Is human violence of the same nature—a paradoxical act of creation? Except, we humans want to destroy. And therein lies the difference. We act with intent to smash the other into non-existence. So maybe in this way we do not mirror acts of divine creation.
A paradoxical act of creation?
What do we mirror then? How did we come to embody this hatefulness? Is our wish to destroy a desire for ultimate superiority? And once achieved, what would be the result? The ability to exist peaceably as one?
I doubt it. An “other” would arise from that sameness. Some individuals would think differently and evolve, attract followers, and become “other.” The cycle would repeat itself.
We are Sisyphus in our existence through and through.
Maybe God will let us destroy ourselves, but I think not. Not when we can be awed by the magnificence of wonder and mystery—the creation of the Universe.
And that is why, despite the bloodshed and inhumane acts of violence I witness every day in the news, I behold awe and wonder and hope in my heart. Existence is eternal, and we humans may yet evolve to comprehend our divinity and act accordingly.
My hope for us is not extinguished. Not yet. Maybe never.