Grandeur, Laws and Makeup of the

Universe are Awesome
By Schaefer Kendrick

This is one argument a lawyer won hands down (whatever “hands down” means).  He, a doctor and an engineer were arguing whoseprofession was the oldest.  The doctor claimed his was the oldest citing the first operation by The Great Surgeon creating Eve out of the rib of Adam.  The engineer said he had that beat, citing the first great engineering feat by The Great Engineer creating order out of chaos.  The lawyer won the argument by asking the simple question: “Who do you think created chaos?”

The longer I live the more my awe is struck by the grandeur, the laws and the makeup of this universe.  We take it for granted, but the sun does always rise in the east and always sets in the west; gravity doesn’t work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, it works every day, 24 hours a day; the seasons find order in their regularity; the winds seem capricious but when studied they reveal a purpose and a plan and a consistency; the moon makes its calendar by manipulating the oceans; water refuses to run uphill; flowers bloom in a riot of colors the human hand cannot emulate.

Two weeks ago I was standing on the beach at Pawleys Island.  The sun was visibly pumping up moisture out of that vast body of water creating clouds for the wind to push to the west in search of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Finding that great range, the clouds would then, drop by drop, renew the flora and fauna and in the process replenish the creeks, watersheds and rivers, the water then draining back to the ocean from whence it had come in a process of recycling for ages past and for ages to come.

Just yesterday, I picked up an acorn under the shade of a giant oak tree and pondered how could the sun, rain and soil transform this seed, which I was holding in my hand, into a tree that could hold a hundred of me in its limbs?

Then this morning I looked up at the cloudless sky at infinity.  The infinity that reaches beyond the human eye, beyond the telescope, beyond the space ship, beyond the imagination and even beyond itself.

And last night I finished reading a biography of Galileo Galilei**, the genius who helped Copernicus and Newton turn the concept of the universe inside out and upside down.  As I turned out my reading lamp, I issued a prayer of thanksgiving that I live in a country where the mind can explore the universe and report its findings, whatever they may be, whether they be true or false, without the fear of being tried for the crime of heresy by The Inquisition and receiving a sentence of life imprisonment, as was the fate of Galileo.  The sentence was later modified and some 350 years after his trial, Galileo was officially forgiven by the Catholic Church; Pope John Paul II formally asked a reversal of the Church’s decision against the great scientist.  In the following year, the Vatican declared Galileo had been absolutely right to say that the earth revolved around the sun and announced his heresy would be re-examined.

This is the adjudicated heretic who wrote:  “The sun, with all of its planets moving around it, can ripen the smallest bunch of grapes, as if it had nothing else to do.  Why, then, would I doubt His power?”

Amen!

** Galileo and the Birth of Modern Science by Martin Suggett.