Far, far away

These are not stars!

These are galaxies; about 10,000 of them.  This is a view of just a small portion of the sky; it's what you could see if you looked through a soda straw that was about 8 feet long.

This is the deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years.

In ground-based photographs, the patch of sky in which these galaxies reside looks largely empty.  The image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004.


Stars gather in galaxies, galaxies gather in local groups, groups gather in clusters, and clusters gather in super-clusters which align in strands that make up the universe.  The strands look not unlike the interior structure of a sponge, strangely enough.  The number of stars is incomprehensible, yet what we see is not even a tenth of what's there.

Astronomers now recognize that the universe is held in place by dark energy and dark matter. The current cosmological model describes a universe that is 68 % dark energy, 27% dark matter, and only 5% normal matter.  That 5% includes everything you can see in this and other pictures of the visible sky.

We don't know what dark energy is, or why it exists. On the other hand, particle theory tells us that, at the microscopic level, even a perfect vacuum is filled with quantum particles that are perhaps the natural source of dark energy. Beyond that, troublingly,  a naïve calculation of the dark energy generated from the vacuum yields a value 10120 times larger than the amount we think the universe consumes. Some further and unknown physical process is required to make use of most, but not all, of that energy, leaving enough behind to drive the accelerating expansion of the Universe.  Wonder what that energy might be doing?

Dark energy is theoretical and of course undetectable except perhaps by inference.  Dark matter, which makes up most of the universe is equally invisible, unknowable, imperceptible, and between the two of them, they make up about 95% of what is.  Our physical reality is 95% unknown.  We suspect that both dark energy and dark matter pass by us continually without our awareness.  We have based all our science and conclusions on that visible and perceptible 5%.  Having grasped the elephant by the tail, we speak confidently yet we have no no grasp whatsoever of 95% of what is real; we can't even point at it or talk about it except by ... faith?

Our sun is one of thousands of billions of trillions of stars which make up perhaps 5% of what actually comprises the universe.  We know so little and live so confidently on that basis.  We hope we're right, but can we support our conclusions with comprehensive science?

Our Milky Way is an average spiral galaxy, perhaps 120,000 light-years across with maybe 400 billion stars.
So how many stars and galaxies are there?

According to astronomers, there are probably more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe alone, stretching out into a region of space 13.8 billion light-years away from us in all directions.  That's what we can 'see' with our speed-of-light limited methods.
That's just the minimum; the universe is perhaps much larger, but we can't see those farther places because they're beyond the light-speed boundary.  It’s possible that the universe is infinite after all.

We have a difficult enough time developing a personal worldview that isn't uninformed.  It's perhaps even more difficult to have a coherent view of 'the universe' and what it might mean.  Whether your faith rests in our '5% science' community and their interpretation of it all, or in something more, the best we have at the moment is as though we were seeing through a glass darkly.

Sweet friends from the 'real' world most of us have never seen ...

There’s a lot of stars in the universe.

And a lot of unanswered questions.  

(The confident fundamentalists in every community could benefit from a breath-taking moment facing the reality of what no one yet knows.  Perhaps we all might.)

1848 again?

As the 21st century settles in, discontent spreads through the developed world. Concerned primarily with government and its uncomfortably close ties to the wealthy, we watch as our politicos play in favor of monied interests at every juncture.

Large segments of the population have come out in protest as the gap between the rich and poor widens.  With information available from international sources, folks have begun to note the decades of spectacular progress for the wealthy while the working class continues to lose ground.

Most recently, the Great Recession cost trillions of dollars.  That price was paid out of middle class retirement plans and investments, out of working class food prices, and out of the developing world's marketplace.  At the bottom of the curve, millions died.

Perpetrators of this most recent mega-theft were insulated from accountability and were paid millions of dollars in bonuses for their crash participation and subsequent years.  Generally, the companies involved and their employees were bailed out and protected by the governments of the countries involved.  While I lost about a third of what I've set aside over the last forty years to care for my wife after I'm gone, they made top-1% salaries plus bonuses.  Despite market recovery, our personal losses are real and will not be recouped within my lifetime.

Galician slaughter (Polish: Rzeź galicyjska) by Jan
Lewicki depicting the massacre of Polish nobles
by Polish peasants in Galicia in 1846

Interestingly, the mid-nineteenth century was much like today.  The world was similarly stirred up with protests in major cities across Europe.  It was the trailing edge of an upheaval that began perhaps with the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the emerging industrialization of the larger economies.

Unskilled laborers spent 12 to 15 hours a day working while living in disease and squalor.  Much like life for today's poor, they spent half of their earnings on food.  Aristocratic wealth (and corresponding power) was synonymous with the ownership of farm lands and effective control over the peasants. Their grievances exploded during the revolutionary year of 1848 with more than 50 nations involved.

The wealthy families were called 'aristocracy' and 'the nobles', but they weren't particularly noble. Their lives were focused on self and power, much like today.  Serfdom died as many of the 'nobles' were killed by peasants in the uprisings.

The European Revolutions of 1848 were a series of political upheavals across the continent.

It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history, but within a year, most
uprisings were crushed.  The revolutionary wave began in France in February, and immediately
spread to most of Europe and parts of Latin America. Over 50 countries were affected, but with no
coordination or cooperation among the revolutionaries in different countries. Among the factors
involved: widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership; demands for more participation in
government and democracy; the demands of the working classes ...

The Gap between rich and poor prompted revolutions across the world aimed at the privileged and their government.  Thousands died but little structural change followed; ideological conflict continues, however, as injustice and inequality boil up and over again today.

Do overs.

Give a little.  Oh good grief, again?

To the ASPCA because, you know, someone needs to care for the puppies.
To the Red Cross because they help people in need.
To Feed the Hungry because, you know, somebody's got to.

It can add up.  Ten dollars here, ten dollars there, it can add up to a lot, even if it is tax deductible, you know what I mean?  How are we supposed to respond to all the charity requests?

You almost have to make a place in your budget, huh?

That's all fake, and it doesn't count for our virtue score.  All of that is just how we struggle with our conscience as we grapple with our place in the world.  Try that again?

On TV, we see an orphan in need and give $25 to some organization.  It's a big deal, but what we really want, deep down inside, it to make a difference; a huge difference that changes things and lasts a lifetime.  We can, but it's not a small thing, and not just a passing gesture.

If our own child was starving, we wouldn't throw a few bucks at the problem and feel better, would we.  If it would make the difference, you'd lay down your life and die in their place.   Our love for our children is visible in our life choices and priorities.

Now what about everyone else; our fellow man?  If we decide to actually care, it's probably going to be visible in our life priorities too.  So, willing to try one more time?

Our little princess in her new dress, danced all day.

Our loose cash placed in the Sunday offering for folks in need; is it enough to connect us to the rest of the world like a person who understands and cares?  Or is it just enough to make us feel OK about spending more on our cell phone than they have for the whole family for food and everything else.

We try to be generous, often with just small successes.  

If we could get past just watching out for ourselves, perhaps we'd ramp up our involvement until it was a real part of our life, until there was a legitimate sacrifice, maybe 5-10% of our gross income as a first goal.  We could sponsor kids from 20+ families in school and college, we could do microfinance assists for opportunities as they came up, we could come up with a couple dozen goats a year or so, we could make up the difference for a family trying to buy the land they live on, we could buy the materials a family needs to bring water and electricity to their house, we could pay for the materials for a family to put a floor in their house and for pads to sleep on instead of dirt, ...

And once we're in, the fun stuff starts.  We could coordinate the renovation of a neighborhood school, we could help a community to build a preschool, we could sponsor a teacher for a year to reduce the student/teacher ratio in a community, we could help pay for a well and an irrigation pump.

We could have a family that grows and grows.  And a legacy.  A difference that really means a lot.

Or we could just spend it on nicer houses, nicer cars, nicer clothes, nicer tech stuff, and in a decade we can pretty much double the stuff we have in our lives and in our retirement accounts.

On vacation this summer, we drove to the beach and then back at the end of the week.  Around 750 miles total, it's more than most of the world's people will cover in a year or maybe a lifetime.  After a surfing mishap, the emergency room service and follow-up was more medical care than most folks will have in a year or maybe a decade.  In the grocery store ... most folks don't have grocery stores.  And we think we're normal, that our needs are common and legitimate.

See the world, the countries,  BoP, poverty, and inequality.

"Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives."
"Healthy, productive lives ..."

I like that statement and the goals that go with it.  Providing a western template isn't help.  Helping folks forge their own path to health and productivity is a great blessing.

The stuff that helps?  Don't send T-shirts.  Don't send shoes.  Be a contributing part of the stuff that works.  See helping without hurting.
World Vision is at the top of my list for many reasons.  Community based efforts over decades are required to bring progress out of poverty. World Vision does that.   See how they do it.

Having a clue; it requires a life change just to find a beginning point.  Go see for yourself.  Spend the time it takes to grapple with all of the implications while you try to live it out.  Oh, and don't forget the puppies.

Impasse

It's a difficult question; providing for the live-born child of abortion.  It's a great burden on the mother and on the abortion provider as well, isn't it.      

Having made the decision to abort the child, now suddenly everything has changed.

Having made a mistake and found a solution, in a moment and unexpectedly, she's a parent. It's a difficult circumstance to resolve for the mother. It's a bit clearer perhaps when the questions are about the child. There are those two easily recognized sides of the issue, and a public discussion is needed. It's only an impasse when the answers given attend to just one side of the question.

• We passed a law in '02 to protect these children. "[Born alive by] natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion."^[4]
• In the U.S., the CDC records mortality statistics under ICD-10 code P96.4. Records show 362 abortions resulted in infants (i.e. first born alive) who died on the abortionist's table. These are reported in the most recently available 10-year period, 2001-2010.

Those figures are just the reported incidents.  Following the Kermit Gosnell trial in '13 where clinic workers testified to seeing more than 24 aborted babies born alive (none reported to CDC), we find that a more reasonable estimate is perhaps in the thousands.

There are hundreds like her who lived ...
and thousands were were killed after being born.

We know the answers.
What's the right question?

It's not easy

“Friend, I know it’s not easy. That’s the point.”

I wrote down the words, because they gave me a chill.

A teacher told me once that we know when a thing is true, because it feels like remembering. I've learned to pay attention to the moments that give me these chills. This word is not adequate, the feeling is not one of cold. I visualize instead that I am recognizing something and my neurons are lunging toward that thing, as if trying to hold hands. It feels like the universe discovering a piece of itself.
~Robin Grearson, 7/29/15, in Art, Focus, Lifestyle, OUR WORLD

Becoming a person of character is perhaps the most difficult path one might attempt.  It isn't easy, but it is a real option available to us all.  It lets us be useful to others, and happiness that lasts is included.





How to get there (children's version):  "...you should try as much as you can to add these things to your lives: to your faith, add goodness; and to your goodness, add knowledge; and to your knowledge, add self-control; and to your self-control, add the ability to hold on; and to your ability to hold on, add service for God; and to your service for God, add kindness for your brothers and sisters in Christ; and to this kindness, add love.  If all these things are in you and are growing, they will help you never to be useless."  

It's not easy, but the great gift we're given is that it's possible.