A Moment of Clarity

My fascination with learning has recently led me to astronomy and physics. The thought occured to me that of all matter in the universe, living and static, humans stand alone in their capacity to choose. Every heavenly body moves according to the laws of physics and has no will of its own. While we can't violate the laws of physics, we have a certain amount of freedom to live within them.

Everyday we are free to make choices about what we will think, where we will go, and what we will say, yet for all our freedom the sum of our choices are so very fleeting in light of the eternity of space and time. We will be forgotten. In time those who remember us will be forgotten. It seems that even the consequences of all our choices will eventually be erased given enough time. Our bodies, our thoughts, and our actions were, are, and soon will be energy once more. From the stars we came and to the stars we will go.

Mass gives up its form and turns to energy once more, E=MC2. In a scientific sense the only thing that is truly eternal is pure energy, even though it will be converted into mass again then back to energy in a perpetual cosmic dance. It begs the question "what in life really matters," given our seemingly small and brief moment in the universe. Are any of our thoughts, actions, things, relationships going to survive for more than a moment?

Our unique place in the universe should give us some insight into who we are and what really matters. While there undoubtedly are beings in the universe more evolved and more advanced than we are, our process of evolution should give us some clue into what we are becoming. We are social creatures by our very nature. What may be called the development of civilization in human history is yet one more maturing step along this great process of evolution. When comparing 21st century humans to our predecessors we have made remarkable advancements. If we project that maturation into the future, especially at the exponential rate of development we've seen in the last 100 years, it is beyond comprehension to imagine what our potential could be. We are most noble when we are most loving, when we are selfless. It is not too dreamy to imagine a time and place when we will have grown up past our fears and our prejudices. Certainly, others must have done it somewhere, somehow. However, it is also frightening to imagine in how many other lifetimes and civilizations people have chosen not to evolve. Rather than chosing to love, they choose to destroy, and miss their destiny.

It is disheartening to know that no matter how advanced we or other civilizations become, in time they end. Cosmic collisions and stellar burnouts occur all the time, and when they do the process starts over again as though it had never began in the first place. The slate is wiped clean. It is this beautiful thing we call life. It is rare and precious beyond comprehension. This wonderful mysterious process has been referred to as "the mind of God" by Albert Einstein and others. For all that we now know, there are some things that will always be just out of our reach to fully understand. We cannot fully know the mind of God, less we become God ourselves, yet I believe we can know his heart.

By knowing His heart we can know ourselves, created in His image. We can know the wonderous potential we have to be human. By our actions we choose everyday to deny or to embrace the gift that is life. There is only one way to be fully human, to be fully divine, to be fully timeless. That way is love. Only love is eternal. Nothing else remains. When we choose love, we aspire to the greatest of all human achivements. The pinnacle of evolution lasts only for seconds amid the vastness of time and space, before the tide comes in and washes our sand castles out to sea, but for that moment we embrace our destiny. We proudly embrace our place in the universe as those who love. I have to believe that somehow in "the mind of God," beyond our comprehension, such an incredible achievement as love, is not lost upon time and space. Today with this word, with this action, we choose to love, to be more than we are, to be timeless.