I am remembering a lifetime of trying to map
the shape of shadow and light,
To draw the clean edges of change
And what has made me an oddity
Asked me to live far more closely
To the center of all that awe and ache.
Einstein told us that our universe is shaped and defined by light. We live in a visual cage, and what we call time is simply the ever-moving shadow of the bars which confine us....But suppose that...we were able to outrun the waves of light which undulate across the universe. As we leap...across the galaxy we overtake and leave behind the light which left the surface of the earth...the image will travel forever in this everlasting night, seeking its home among the stars, reaching ever outward toward some hypothetical destination at the universe's problematic end. Is light, then, the stuff our souls are made of?
Through science we have created magnificent spacecrafts and telescopes to explore
the night and the light and the half light. We have made visible things that are
invisible to the unaided eye. We have brought the dreamy heavens down to Earth,
held them in the mind's eye. Our explorations have produced a vast archive of
remarkable astronomical images...The riches are too many for choices, the
revelations beautiful and dreadful. Who can look at these images and not be
transformed? The heavens declare God's glory.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
and though the body sleeps, the heart will never rest
Shed a little light oh Lord so that we can see
Just a little light oh Lord...
