Sabbath Devotional :: Perspectives on the Pale Blue Dot
This week’s diet of news includes:
a platter of pardon for a confessed criminal
a fresh gumbo of cooked-up conspiracy theories
a pallet cleanser of a whistleblower’s account about specious miracle drugs
and a bulk order of Funeral Potatoes for the nearly 90 thousand souls in the US who have died so far this year from COVID-19.
This maelstrom of chaos has been unrelenting for years now. We muster our courage and contact our civic leaders on important matters — often feeling like we’re howling in the wind. We protect the vote and encourage our communities. We send aid, lift banners, and inform ourselves from reliable sources. We reach way beyond our comfort zones and try writing, public speaking (or zoom meetings these days), and we wear our “Make America Ethical Again” purple hats and t-shirts along with our face masks.
And often, inside, we still feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the enormity of the tasks and deluge of disappointments we continue to face. (Please tell me I’m not the only one.)
Writer Maria Popova says, “I don’t think it is possible to contribute to the present moment in any meaningful way while being wholly engulfed by it. It is only by stepping out of it, by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us.” [1]
I find this “telescopic perspective” both humbling and heartening. As for humbling, I learn from the contemplative teacher in Ecclesiastes in the book’s first chapter:
What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.[2]
Carl Sagan wrote from a literal telescopic perspective after seeing the image of earth as a “pale blue dot” in a photo taken by Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990:
” Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.”[3]
We need reminders that the world has always been plagued by war, chaos, calamity and (in fact) plagues.
John Steinbeck put it aptly in a letter to a friend during WWII:
“All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn’t die.”[4]
And as the character of King George in Hamilton the Musical ironically sings:
“Oceans rise, empires fall/
We have seen each other through it all.”[5]
I find that long view hopeful. It recognizes both the dignity of the human spirit and the reality of inescapable challenges of mortal life. These have been summed up colorfully and terrifyingly as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Revelation: Conquest; War; Famine; and Death.
Also during the horrific and turbulent times of WWII, Albert Camus, at the young age of 27, wrote this in his essay The Almond Trees:
“We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as [humans] is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century . . . . The first thing is not to despair.”[6]
We as humans live in a mortal space that constantly and simultaneously serves up tragedies and triumphs. Our task is to remind ourselves that we are not – at our core — simply mortal beings, but eternal ones. We are individuals who have existed before and will exist after we finish our time on this pale blue dot.
As we nourish the virtues that are never tethered to timelines, we will learn to keep ourselves from despair, numbness, and indifference. We can telescope in on what most deserves our attention and focus – loving God; loving one another; seeking peace; mending breaches; building bridges; consecrating our lives to good regardless of the outcome.
President Russell M. Nelson shares his counsel that suggests something even more than spiritual “survival” during hard times:
“The prophet Lehi taught a principle for spiritual survival . . . . Consider his circumstances: He had been persecuted for preaching truth in Jerusalem and had been commanded by the Lord to leave his possessions and flee with his family into the wilderness . . . . Lehi knew opposition, anxiety, heartache, pain, disappointment, and sorrow. Yet he declared boldly and without reservation a principle as revealed by the Lord: ‘Men are, that they might have joy.’
“Imagine! Of all the words he could have used to describe the nature and purpose of our lives here in mortality, he chose the word joy!”
“[T]he joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives . . . . When the focus of our lives is on Jesus Christ and his gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening — or not happening — in our lives. Joy comes from and because of him. He is the source of all joy.”[7]
“Joy” is a complicated word. Do not interpret it as puffery, or as some sentimental confection. Please don’t read it as a weapon against yourself if your heart-sickness and exhaustion over current circumstances don’t come with a smile or balloons. We immortal mortals are in fact in this together.
Remember Maria Paplova’s observation: “It is only by stepping out of [the thick of things], by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us.” I’m strengthened, buoyed and encouraged by being arm in arm with you, my dear MWEG sisters. We have work enough to do.
ONWARD!
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[1] In Praise of the Telescopic Perspective: A Reflection on Living Through Turbulent Times
[2] Ecclesiastes 1: 2, 14
[4] https://www.amazon.com/…/ASIN/0140042881/braipick-20 Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten, editors
[5] https://genius.com/Original-broadway-cast-of-hamilton…
[6] https://nothingintherulebook.com/…/reason-in-an-age-of…/
[7] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/…/joy-and-spiritual…
Linda Hoffman Kimball is a founding member of Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
