The Cosmic Choreographer

It’s the 13th of March, 1610.

You’re 70 years old, your name is Ernest, and you live in a cute little house on the top of a hill.

One cold Saturday morning, you wake up – a good start for someone your age – and begin your morning routine. You wipe your face with a damp cloth, get dressed, and go to sit in your favourite chair by your favourite window.

As you go to pull out a book, you realise you’re just in time for sunrise, so you leave the book lying on the coffee table and decide to ponder the brilliance of the sun rays instead. They’re coming up over the distant hills, spattering their golden glory all over the sky.

As you soak in the wonders of the heavens, you are reminded just how amazing it is that the sun rises each day. It is so vital to your survival, and it is so extremely reliable. Has it ever not risen into the eastern sky? You ask yourself. Will it ever not set beneath the western horizon?

While you consider these things, the door in the corner of the room suddenly swings open. Swivelling round, you see your dear grandson bounding towards you, his face a picture of excitement.

“Grandpa, grandpa!” he shouts. “He’s proved it!”

“Who has proven what, young man?” you say with a warm smile.

“Galileo! He says the earth orbits the sun!”

Your jaw nearly hits the floor. You have been waiting, along with your grandson and millions of others, to see what Galileo would report after using his revolutionary new telescope. And the wait is over. Galileo has done his research, and he agrees with contemporary Copernicus, not ancient Aristotle.

“Goodness gracious,” you mutter under your breath, as you take another glance out of the window at the golden sky. “This might just change everything.”

THIS MIGHT JUST CHANGE EVERYTHING

In March 1610, Ernest & co had to wrestle with the gargantuan discovery that the earth orbits the sun, not the other way round. Imagine the feeling of disorientation.

You spend all your days scurrying about this fixed and immovable rock called planet earth, becoming pretty darn sure in the process that the earth certainly does not fly about the cosmos. The sun and the moon were the movers – CLEARLY. These were not even considered beliefs or opinions; they were just blindingly obvious facts.

Let’s go back to Ernest for a second. How do you think the news might have affected him?

He could have gone to one end of the spectrum: wholeheartedly accepting the new truth AND cynically assuming that everything else he ever believed was probably wrong too. At the other extreme, he could have totally denied Galileo’s discovery and hunkered down in the trench of his old views.

Both extremes – gullibility and cynicism – are sabotage. But the thing is, I know that Ernest won’t fall for either. How can I be so sure? There is a hint in the opening section. Can you see what it is?

Ernest will avoid the extremes because of his relationship with his grandson.

First of all, Ernest’s grandchild – the bearer of the news – was welcome in his room. He knew that he could burst in on his grandfather unexpected. He knew he wouldn’t be scolded, ordered out, or called a fool.

You see, the younger generation represent new life and new discoveries – and Ernest welcomes it. He is the kind of person that would give Galileo the time of day.

I also know that Ernest won’t fall into a dark cynicism. Why? The love he feels for his grandson is too real. Love keeps us from cynicism, because we trust and rely on the love of those closest to us, and the treasures we find in that love safeguard us from corrosive doubt and nihilism.  

Ernest didn’t keep the door to his room, or his heart, locked. Neither should we. We must let the next generation in. If we really seek the truth, and embark on a life of discovery, we will see the cosmos in a new light, and maybe even see it reordered before our very eyes...

THE TRUE CENTRE

Humanity's ongoing problem is that it misunderstands its place in the universe. We once thought that our planet was at the centre of the solar system, when in fact a much bigger and brighter sphere was choreographing the cosmic dance. And we are forever making a very similar mistake.

The symbology is heavy:

Our source of life – that great sustaining star – is made out to be peripheral.

Our source of life – that glorious, burning heart of the universe – is seen as secondary in the celestial order.

Our source of life – that unmoving, unchanging radiance – is misconceived by those whose lives depend on it.

If ever there was a mistake to put right, it was this.

We orbit around Him, He does not orbit around us;

We are the ones that move, He is the great Unmovable Fact;

We swing through His universe at His mercy...

He is the cosmic choreographer, the true centre of all.