advent journal: get yourself awed

300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

No, that’s not my salary offer to pitch next year, nor is it the number of Cheetos I have consumed in my life time. 300 sextillion is the latest estimate of the number of stars in the universe, which is three times what astronomers had previously thought. As we learned from Hubble’s “Deep Field” pictures, every time we look out into the darkness, we find more light.

Or, perhaps, it’s the other way round.

The story is not new, but I thought about it again today because of another NPR story on Voyager 1, a spacecraft launched in 1977 to look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, which is getting close to the outer edge of our solar system and will move on into interstellar space in about four years. Melissa Block talked to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium and asked him what had been the most amazing thing he had learned from Voyager and he talked about seeing the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The images were clear enough to see mountains and ice. They aren’t just big balls of gas, he said, they are worlds.

As I meandered the web before I started to write, my friend Sonya pointed me to this article by Mark Morford that talked about the sextillion stars and finished with one other thing:

Oh and BTW? 300 sextillion, says our sly scientist, also happens to be the rough sum total of all cells inhabiting all human bodies on planet earth at this particular moment. One sextillion stars, one sextillion cells. Isn't that fascinating? Isn't that an odd coincidence?


Well, no, say the wise ones. Not really. Now pipe down and get yourself awed.

I put it all together and I come up singing hymns:

O Lord my God when I in awesome wonder
consider all the worlds thy hands hath made
I see the stars I hear the rolling thunder
thy power throughout the universe displayed
then sings my soul . . .

On the continuum of wonder, we sit somewhere between the two sextillions, cellular and celestial, stealthily bombarded with opportunities for amazement from both directions, even as we, the inhabitants of this world, are consumed by our fears and distractions, along with our ever-expanding sense of ourselves. Yet, the sum of all our arrogance doesn’t come close to 300 sextillion ramekins of rage (or whatever the measurement might be); our fear stands dwarfed by the brilliance bound for us at the speed of, well, light.

Maybe that’s why every time an angel shows up in the gospels he leads with, “Do not be afraid.”

Yes, it’s dark out there and, as David Wilcox says, “there’ll always be some crazy with an army or a knife.” But all the IEDs and RPGs, all the cancers and car crashes, the Alzheimers, all the terrorists and tsunamis, all the smart bombs and stupid politicians, all the wars and rumors of wars don’t come close to outnumbering the 300 sextillion stars – the light gaining on us – and all the cells that are our built-in reminder of what has been true since Creation: nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Bill Mallonee has a song called “Look at All the Stars.” The last two verses say:

there are some who’re blind by choice
and there others who are not
and I’ve kept so many faces
but my own I’ve long forgot
father often took me here
he was like a little child
long before the lights went out
I can still see him smile
he said look at all the stars
oh my look at all the stars

yeah I brought you here to see
all the things I never see
brought you to this highest peak
so you’ll me what I’m missing
when the clouds are blown apart
I hear the moon shines like a cup
in that silver velvet blue
the heart of God it opens up
look at all the stars
you say look at all the stars
oh my look at all the stars

Pipe down and get yourself awed: say, “Oh, my, look at all the stars.”

Peace,
Milton

a quick note from the week

It seems this blog has become unintentionally sporadic. I have things I want to say that I have not had time to put on paper; I also have thoughts and feelings I need to sort out a bit before they are loosed on the world. In the greater scope of things, the challenges of these days for our family are not unusual or unique. We are stuck in the middle of life with everyone else. That said, I thought I would share one of the songs getting me through these days: Bill Mallonee's "Bank."



Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: practice life

Sunday night I was working at the Durham restaurant when one of the servers came to tell me that Chuck, one of our vets, was in the dining room. (It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a clinic to raise Schnauzers.) He and his wife were well into the entrees of her birthday dinner when I finally got out to their table to say hello. Our conversation bounced a round a bit, but after a while I asked her what she did for a job and she said, “I practice sports medicine and urgent care.” Who knows why, but I woke up thinking about her statement, particularly her choice of verb: practice.
“We wage war,” I thought to myself, “and we practice healing.”

Maybe its all the reading about music, or watching and listening to Bill Mallonee Saturday night as he deftly played and sang his way through wonderful songs and stories, or the pull to pick up my guitar because I have a gig with my friend, Terry, in about six weeks and, well, I need to practice.

Practice: the word came into English a half a millennium ago carrying much the same definition it does now: to perform repeatedly to acquire skill. A hundred years later, people began using it in relation to professions: “she practices law.” Yet, it was hardly a hundred years ago that people began using it in relation to faith: “he is a practicing Christian.”

I got home late from work last night and sat down with Ginger and the pups with no other intention other than to sit down with Ginger and the pups. Amidst the conversation and puppy rubbing, we began watching the ice dancing and came in just as the Canadian couple who won the gold medal began their routine. Sunday night, as I was sitting at the bar at the restaurant finishing the produce order, I got to see the last few minutes of the USA-Canada hockey game. I had the same thought in both situations, as I watched people moving across the frozen floor on burnished blades with ease and expertise: how did they learn to do that?

Practice.

A number of years ago, Billy Crockett and I wrote a song called “Walking on the Earth,” which was inspired by the call to “Carpe Diem” in Dead Poet’s Society. The song began

walking on the earth for a little while
how do how do we make it count
kicking up the dust for another mile
how do how do we make it count

As the sentiment unfolded, we said

walking on the earth it’s your only trip
how do how do we make it count
there is no practice life, this is it
how do how do we make it count

I still love both the song and the movie, and, tonight I would like to make one small change to the lyric

there is a practice life: this is it.

Practice healing. Practice kindness. Practice compassion. Practice guitar and piano, harmonica and mandolin. Practice breaking eggs and painting flowers. Practice friendship and kindness and sitting still. Practice eating well and walking dogs and taking to neighbors. Practice having friends over for dinner and meeting for coffee. Practice affirming one another. Practice having fun for no particular reason. Practice singing with the radio while the car windows are down. At a stop light. With the windows down. Practice following your heart. Practice listening and praying and singing hymns. Practice talking to little kids. Practice laughing out loud. Practice asking questions that don’t have answers. Practice resurrection.

I know the last phrase because of my friend, Tim, who practices life whole-heartedly. The phrase is the title of his blog, and is taken from this poem by Wendell Berry who practices farming and poetry.

Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front


Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.


So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.


Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.


Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?


Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Practice Lent. Practice Love. Practice Life.

Peace,
Milton