Did you see the newest pictures released by NASA? I’m no Neil DeGrasse Tyson and I can’t say I really understood what I was seeing in the web of nebula, galaxies, and stars, but I can give you my very scientific opinion that the newest pictures from the James Webb telescope were pretty.
Now pretty is hardly the best word to describe our boundless, mysterious universe. You could say stunning, haunting, or breathtaking. Everything falls short. Maybe the best, if not the most poetic description, is that our universe is big. It’s big, folks. It is big and it is terrifyingly and fascinatingly unknown and unknowable. We are such a small part of such an immeasurable space full of history and possibility. We’re finally seeing in crystal clear images everything that has been and everything that could be and we are just a speck. We have no way to know, at least for now, what else exists beyond our borders. We have no way, at least for now, to fully understand or explain what we see around us. There is infinite space to grow and learn and change.
How can we look at this and believe we have all the answers? If we’re so small in this infinite, and awesome universe, there is no need be small in our corner of it. Dream bigger than hate. Dream bigger than bigotry. Dream bigger than the way things have always been. The universe is waiting for us.
I’m Lynnea Erickson Laskowski and that’s my perspective.
