The Pale Blue Dot revisited

It was a Saturday. I found myself unusually busy after an unusually busy week with a morning Writing Fellow’s conference which I had a major part in running. As the conference wrapped up and I realized it was finally over everyone dispersed their separate ways. I found myself alone and exhausted. I slowly walked home and pondered the loneliness I was feeling. There is great camaraderie in the Writing Fellows. I love being a part of the organization yet I still find myself as the odd fellow in the room. I am ultimately not an English major. Grammar is not my strong suite or even a pressing issue in my life. I tend to be very aloof during events like this as I run around making sure everything works that I forget to talk to anyone. So I rarely build significant friendships.

Because I was at the conference I missed a Wallyball tournament that the whole ward participated in. So arriving home everyone was chatting about the adventure and I had nothing to contribute. The sun was shining and I was very tired so I decided to spend a few moments, before I had to return to campus for more tasks, sitting in my folding chair outside my apartment. I grabbed a book I’ve recently been reading which has been calling to me ever since I saw some videos based on it some months ago.  The book is the Pale Blue Dot, by Carl Sagan. The first couple pages brought me instantly to the same sense of wonder I felt when I saw the video. The sense that there is much of wonder and perspective left in the universe.

As I sat in my own sunbeam I read deeper into the book where Carl Sagan broached the topic of geocentric theory. He pointed out how ridiculous it was for human to assume our planet was the center point of everything.  Piece by piece he expanded on his mockery of humanity as he debunked theories of the sun being special, of the social system being special, of anything astronomically unique about us. After showing how insignificant we were in the universe he proceeded to zoom in on us as life forms. He explained how similar we were to every other creature on our planet.  Even our status as intelligent life form was challenged. All of this was very fair. Humans like to think we are the center of everything even we are not.

Then he crossed the line. He attacked the notion that there was a supreme being that held particular interest in us; A being similar to us in form and appearance; One that cared for us and gave us any privilege.  Carl Sagan is an atheist. He allows that there may be other intelligent beings in the universe, and even that there are more advanced ones. But there is no God in the universe he created on those pages.

I closed the book and went on my way more depressed and lonely than before. I spent some time on campus caring for my penstemon plants and pondering my loneliness, the hole I could feel in my heart.  I don’t know what I’m missing or how to fill that gap in my soul.

Then I received a phone call.

It was my hometeachee. She had just moved in this semester so we weren’t close yet.  I can’t even say her name right yet. But she was feeling sick and being an RM called me up as her hometeacher to give her a blessing. I wrapped up my campus tasks and returned home to take my companion with me. We visited not more than a minute or two as she expressed feeling not only sick but a little overwhelmed by her life at the time. She asked me to give her a blessing with complete trust in a person she had only met briefly once or twice.

I had the distinct impression when I first met her that she was a good person. She had the glow in her that I admire so much in honest followers of Christ. As I placed my hands upon her head a blessing flowed from my tongue that I had not pondered nor premeditated. I gave her highly personal individualized promises in a brief powerful blessing. She started crying. I knew that I could claim no responsibility for the moment. The words from my tongue were not my cognitive creation. They were my interpretation of a message that some being with power beyond my own wanted to share with a specific member of a species of monkey that lived on one tiny planet utterly isolated in the vast volume of space.

When God wants me to find a better way or attitude he sends me to bless someone else.  I don’t know what all that blessing meant to that young lady but to me it was a direct reminder that God is not dead nor doth he sleep. There is a power in this universe that is generally invisible to us mere mortals. Not only is it a power that permeates everywhere and knows everything but it understands us as individuals not just a particularly warmongering species. And not only does that being understand us individually but it cares enough for us that its willing to communicate with us.

I’m sorry Carl Sagan. You were a wonderful writer with a true gift for assembling words to invoke grandeur and significance. However, you are wrong. I have no science that can prove that God exists. In spite of those who claim to have found scientific evidence for God I can make no such claim. He isn’t proven with material signs. I know there is a God because it is his power that flowed through me when I put my hands on that woman’s head. I have felt his power and his influence again and again in my life. For me to deny that those feelings existed would be like me ignoring the reality of hunger simply because I am full right now.

Humanity is significant. Maybe we aren’t genetically all that unique and perhaps there are monkeys that use tools and develop altruism. Regardless of what other life may be or do it doesn’t matter. We are the most important species on this planet and perhaps in the universe because God loves us as his children: A love that places us squarely in the center of his plan for everything; a love that makes us, homo sapiens, the most important organism in all known space.  Believe in God dear humanity, for surely he believes in you.

 

Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Post navigation

One thought on “The Pale Blue Dot revisited

  1. Will

    A beautiful post. Thank you for sharing your testimony. The first part reminded me of how I felt in early 1978. I went to the temple with a prayer that my loneliness would be ended. That night, I went to a dance and took special notice of Karen Skidmore…

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Adventure Journal by Contexture International.