Look up
Why it matters, when life gets you down, to look up.
There’s a storm front, twice as big as planet earth, that’s been raging on planet Jupiter for three hundred years (at least). Puts these little wintry storms in perspective. I won’t let this little blustery wind and light rain keep me from walking the dog.
Twinkle twinkle
One of my earliest memories is being a child at day care, watching in fascination as the teacher floated her hands up into the air and gently wiggled her fingers. I wiggled my fingers too, and sang along.
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are.
Many years later, as an adult, I heard Matthew Fox, a theologian share an account of an indigenous tribe for whom, the twinkling stars in the sky high above the campfire were seen as other campfires, with other people sitting around them, perhaps themselves looking up and seeing our own campfire as a twinkling in the sky. Factually untrue yet capturing truth. Connectedness in the cosmos.
This weeks music and delving is called ‘Look up’ and it’s my reminder to myself to look up from the day-to-day. I sing of some of these amazing things, and delve into why it matters to look up now and then.
I’m really glad that we (humans) got clear on some facts. The earth is not the centre of the universe. The sun doesn’t revolved around us, we revolve around it. It is one of thousands of millions of stars in a galaxy, one of thousands of millions of galaxies in the (known) universe. And, less factually certain but a most compelling and fashionable theory; it all began with an explosion of infinite density from a tiny puzzling point of singularity. (That’s a fancy way of saying the big bang.) Why did that happen? And what was before that? Follow the science and it leads (me) right back into mind boggling mystery.
How I wonder
Before I learnt anything theoretical about connection and mystery, I experienced it. To that little child that I was, the teacher’s hands were as amazing as the stars. Truly. The dawning comprehension of what’s going on… I’m being invited to join in. She didn’t instruct me to. I just knew. We all joined in. Together in communion, in song and gesture of the great mystery.
How I wonder.
Studio recording streaming
There’s a lovely recording of an earlier version of this song, with a different title, ‘Kiss me’ which can be found across the world wide web:
Bonus bite: a one-minute ‘Song from the Sea’ (recorded weekly, at the oceanside)
See you next time folks,
Warmly, Brett Robin
Psalm 19:1-6