Decades ago, in the sixties, at the height of the civil rights movement, Joni Mitchell (with later refinements from Crosby, Stills, and Nash) sang the truth: "We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, And we got to get ourselves back to the garden."
We ARE stardust. We ARE billion year old carbon. In the above infrared image, stellar winds from a giant star cause interstellar dust to form ripples. There's a whole lot of dust—which contains oxygen, carbon, iron, nickel, and all the other elements—out there, and eventually some of it finds its way into our bodies. (PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA, JPL-CALTECH)
Astrophysicist Karel Schrijver explains, "When the universe started, there was just hydrogen and a little helium and very little of anything else. Helium is not in our bodies. Hydrogen is, but that's not the bulk of our weight. Stars are like nuclear reactors. They take a fuel and convert it to something else. Hydrogen is formed into helium, and helium is built into carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, iron and sulfur—everything we're made of. When stars get to the end of their lives, they swell up and fall together again, throwing off their outer layers. If a star is heavy enough, it will explode in a supernova. So most of the material that we're made of comes out of dying stars, or stars that died in explosions. And those stellar explosions continue. We have stuff in us as old as the universe, and then some stuff that landed here maybe only a hundred years ago. And all of that mixes in our bodies." (from "How the Human Body Is Connected to the Life Cycles of the Earth, the Planets, and the Stars.")
How many stars are in the Universe? It might be easier to guess at how many galaxies are in the Universe. NASA tells us "A galaxy is a huge collection of gas, dust, and billions of stars and their solar systems. A galaxy is held together by gravity. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also has a supermassive black hole in the middle. When you look up at stars in the night sky, you're seeing other stars in the Milky Way."
How many galaxies are there in the Universe? According to the scientists who work with the Hubble telescope, "One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the universe contains. The landmark Hubble Deep Field, taken in the mid-1990s, gave the first real insight into the universe's galaxy population. Subsequent sensitive observations such as Hubble's Ultra Deep Field revealed a myriad of faint galaxies. This led to an estimate that the observable universe contained about 200 billion galaxies.The new research shows that this estimate is at least 10 times too low....
"It boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we discover these galaxies with future generations of telescopes? In the near future, the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to study these ultra-faint galaxies..."
The images we see from the Hubble telescope are breath-taking, mind-intoxicating, enough to make us cry out with the psalmist "When I see your heavens (or, "the night sky"), the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place, what are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?" (Psalm 8)
When the Hubble peers into the gorgeous, dusty heart of our own Milky Way galaxy, (photo below) it sees more than half a million stars....
And, wonder of wonders, we are stardust, carbon, born from the stars...Every last one of us human beings..... We are truly an integral part of the Universe. Truly an integral part of all humanity. And, knowing how huge beyond our comprehension our Universe is can give us a healthy sense of how truly small - and dependent on our Creator - each of us is.
Merton once had a unique mystical experience of the interconnectedness of all human beings. He wrote
How, how can we ever get back to the Garden of Eden and our lost innocence? Only your sacrifice for us, incarnate God, and Your sacramental Presence among us can save us and restore us to newness of life, and overcome the sin and illusion of separateness.
In the flood waters of Baptism we were washed clean of sin, empowered by Christ - and so we have become other Christs, commissioned to reach out and save, feed, financially assist, and shelter those who were caught in the raging flood waters of Hurricanes Hugo and Maria. The flood waters of Baptism pouring over Christians has inspired them to send millions of bottles of water to Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. The earth-shaking spiritual power of Baptism has empowered so many to courageously reach out and help when the earth shook in Mexico. To all stand silent and breathe as one, listening for a faint voice issuing from the rubble.
In the flood waters of mercy, the flow of the blood of Christ, we are empowered - as so many were and are - to shed their own blood while saving others in the rain of a sniper's bullets in Las Vegas.... and to donate their own blood to continue to save lives. One man, who felt separated from God and from the rest of humankind, destroyed many lives. But so many more men and women have responded in courage and love to save and heal and encourage others who were strangers so that they might become friends.
Whether or not all those who have leaped from the safety of their lives to save and/or help others during these mighty natural and man-made catastrophes have been Christian is not the most important thing. God, Love, stirred in their souls and impelled them forward. God is Love, and whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him/her. Through the sacrifice of God's Son, all are held in the Heart of Christ.
Oh Holy and Mighty Lord Jesus the Christ, you chose to take on our own weak flesh and became star dust and carbon, a living part of the Universe which you, yourself had helped create.....Spiritually one with your Father, You shone with a golden radiance, and still shine, Cosmic Christ, making us all one in You with each other and the Universe. Through the Power of the twin streams of Blood and Water flowing from your side, wash us clean of the sin of separateness, the illusion of independence, for we are nothing, and you, oh lord, are our Everything. We may each be only a little star dust, but we will, if we love, shine eternally golden with You in Your eternal garden. Give us daily hope that the power of your love is our All in All. Amen.