God's infinite creation

The planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home...


Last weekend, Lori and I went for a little urban adventure in Washington DC. We visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum but skipped all the airplanes. We went to see Beyond: Visions of Our Solar System, an exhibit of spectacular photographs of the planets and moons of our solar system taken in space by NASA astronauts and spacecraft. The photographs have been blown up and put in art frames.

The exhibit took my breath away.

Someone asked me if I had seen the "face of God." No, not really. But these stunning photographs were a enormous reminder to me of how endlessly beautiful God's creation is, and how only an infinitesimally tiny segment of God's creation can be seen and experienced on earth.

The canyons and mountains of Mars are deeper and grander than any on earth. The moons and rings of Saturn are as gorgeous as any rainbow on a summer day. Jupiter is so huge and spins so fast my mind can barely comprehend it. The texture of the moon Europa is better than a Jackson Pollock painting.

This exhibit was also a reminder to me of how small our earth is. The problems of our planet are, in the scheme of the universe, not so big. We ought to be able to solve our ills because our ills really aren't that large.

And we get this gorgeous, beautiful planet, with rich hues of blue and green.

Here are a few photos from NASA. To see a slide show of the photos from the exhibit, click HERE.

And here are a few prayerful words from Eucharistic Prayer C:

God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of glory and praise.

Glory to you for ever and ever.

At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of
interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.

By your will they were created and have their being.