LETTERS TO THE COSMOS

“There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear.” Luke 21:25

For human beings there have always been signs in the sun and stars, distress and perplexity on earth, and waves roaring. We are the cosmos knowing itself – we study heavenly bodies which share the same elements as our own bodies, and our war and perplexity all stems from fear that this is not enough.

I spent a morning with amputees last week and I came away exhausted, so I walked on the beach. Waves smashed in as the wind shook the sky and a sandstorm reflected the chaos in our bodies and emotions. In the turmoil a personalising ordering presence was seeking me as itself.

Nature’s imagination is reflected in us, and this personalising presence is sometimes called the Mind of God, what the Greeks called Logos, the divine reason filling the universe, which will not pass away.

Humans are connected to one another biologically, and to the earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically. As cosmologist Carl Sagan put it: “We live in an in-between universe where things change according to patterns which we call laws of nature … [and] the beauty of a living thing is not in the atoms that go into it, but in the way those atoms are put together.”

The molecules in our bodies are traceable phenomenon in the cosmos, and although chaos and death is ready to re-exert itself, we need not fear chaos or death at all. There is a personalising presence at work revealing itself, as it revealed itself in the cosmic Christ Jesus of the New Testament.

Luke’s gospel goes on: “When these things begin to come to pass, look up, lift up your heads, for your redemption draws nigh … this generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled: heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not.”

Sin is acting on the the belief that we are separate from all this, that we are better, that we should be protected. Love is knowing that this is false, but that the presence is always coming again in us, as it was in Christ.