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Look through a telescope or a microscope?
As the markets crash, London burns, 22 of our bravest warriors are killed, 10's of thousands die from starvation in Somalia, unemployment in the US exceeds 9% and if you take the under employed and those no longer counted, it may be 25%. Greece and Spain seem close to total meltdown which could mean the collapse of the Euro; then another tragedy much closer to home that has been all but forgotten, Haiti. How is a sane person, a person of any compassion at all give any explanation? The religious person can speak of biblical prophesies, but they also speak to the best is yet to come, yet wail and scream when a loved one dies. Somehow, it is simply not enough. The Mayan folklore says it all ends in 2012, yet that is not enough either. There have been street corner types with placards saying the end is near for generations, but do many pay attention? The Buddhist and Hindu speak of karma, that allusive life force that guides us without us always understanding and thus, as in Clavelle's Shogun, the warrior says, "Karma neh".
If we turn the microscope up, and focus on our own lives we are concerned with family, jobs, money, possessions, and all that goes with our lives. If we are doing OK, some simply shut the negative parts of the world out and go on with their lives; however on days of economic upheaval like the past week it becomes much harder to avoid the reality. How can we, as Americans possibly relate our economic malaise to the horrible conditions in Somalia? The fact is that we cannot. No matter our empathy, no matter how tough we may have it, it is simply nothing compared to people that walk hundreds of miles in fear of being shot, raped or robbed every step of the way. How does all this fit----or does it?
If we switch to our telescope and stare in to the depths of space, we have to make a complete mind switch, as the vastness of the universe is totally out of focus considering our small world. After all, the age of the earth is somewhere around 4.5 billion years. Focus more and the age of the universe is estimated to be 13.5 billion plus or minus a half billion. The Milky Way, one of the smaller galaxies that contain our sun and planets, contains 200-400 billion stars, and 50 billion planets. There are billions of galaxies, many times much larger than our own containing yet billions more stars and solar systems. How can we possibly bring the telescope in focus simultaneously with the microscope? Answer that and you may be on the road to enlightenment.
Maybe the best that most of us can do, is use both the telescope and microscope or take the short view or the long one. If we take the long view, that is consider the age of the earth and the vastness of space, then even Somalia shrinks in size and importance but that is a privilege of those of us that are not walking 300 miles in a hostile country. That person has no time to consider time as related to space but instead must stop to bury a child.
Perhaps the best we can do is with the short view, is to do any small or larger thing we can for Somalia, Haiti, and our neighbors remembering with the long view none of it makes any difference. If we compare our lives with a billion years, how can it. Perhaps the person holding the placard is right or perhaps it is the Maya, but one irrefutable fact is that everything has an ending, even the universe. When Saint Paul was asked what he would do if he knew the world was about to end, supposedly he said, "continue to hoe my garden". That might work, if one has a garden.
