As chaos, terror become all too common, please remember all creatures need love
A colleague in the Department of Physics and Astronomy lectured recently on his research into the lifecycles of binary stars and how they offer clues concerning the age of the universe. Along the way, he explained for us non-astronomers what stars are made of, how they work, and the phases through which they proceed as they systematically consume themselves. At one point, almost casually, he observed that in about four billion years our sun will flame out, but not before expanding into a giant red star that will engulf much of our solar system, including Earth.
That isn’t totally new information. I found myself recalling with an old ache in my soul how 25 years ago my daughter, then a Kindergartener, got wind of that projected scenario thanks to something she saw on the Discovery Channel. She sobbed inconsolably for a week. She couldn’t sleep for worrying. “That won’t happen for several billion years,” we assured her. “We needn’t fear that.” But she wasn’t having it. “It still means that someday there won’t be little girls like me, or moms and dads to take care of them,” she retorted. “And what will happen to our house?”
Now she’s a mom and has her own toddler to care for, teach, and comfort, along with a whole new set of parental worries with which to contend. This week’s armed assault on school children in California, the country’s eighth such episode in 2019, likely hovers high on that list. In some ways, the most troubling detail reported so far from that scene in an ordinarily quiet neighborhood is a comment from 17-year-old survivor who spoke of participating in active shooter drills and knowing all his life such things happen. “It’s the world now,” he said. “The world now is weird.”
Chaos and terror have become business as usual, and some wonder why today’s students can’t seem to maintain focus or concentrate as they once did, “back in the day.” Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the continent, more weirdness plays out.
The very people who swore to make America great again, but who haven’t spent 15 minutes doing anything more than praying about massacres in schools, have poured their collective zeal into proving that violations of our Constitution are no big deal. They contend the Emoluments Clause, for example, is “phony,” at best silly, and we shouldn’t worry or care if a president uses a few hundred billion of our tax dollars as leverage to convince a foreign government to search for dirt about a political rival.
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” wrote poet W. B. Yeats a century ago in the wake of World War I. “The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” Every generation has likely felt as we do, that sacred things are toppling, and while the great, red star isn’t yet boiling our oceans, we live under dire threat. Moreover, we should worry, and we must work to ensure a meaningful future for those who come after us.
Each of us must also remember, however, that creatures and citizens nearby, not merely the nation or the cosmos, need our care and love. These include our neighbors, even the quirky ones, people in (slow) check-out lanes, stranded strangers in parking lots and along roadways, shut-ins who can’t come asking for a bit of your time, and children — both yours, and those that aren’t. When some version of the giant star comes for you, these will prove the witnesses who remember you were here.