What a wonderful world!

    When I was 16, I got my first pair of glasses.  Near sighted.  It was a revelation to be able to see things far away and not squint.  The most amazing first sight was the night sky on the first day I wore them.  I had never seen so many stars before!  Even at the time, I was reminded of a television show I had seen a few years before which showed billions and billions of stars. I commented to my brothers, “There aren’t that many stars up there!” They were quick to point out that there in fact were even more than that. The problem was, with my near sighted vision, I had only ever seen about twenty or so.  It didn’t help that I grew up a few miles from Washington, D.C., and the light from the city is quite glaring.  This was brought home to me the first night I spent in Spotsylvania County a few years later.  The night I arrived, I went outside after dark, and almost fell to the ground when I saw the brilliance of a sky from far enough away from any major city that I could see the Milky Way.  And they seemed so close!
     Of course, we know that there are billions of stars in our galaxy, and billions of other galaxies beyond ours.  And here we sit on a tiny world, floating around a smallish star, in a swirling arm of an averaged size galaxy.  The big question is: are we alone in the galaxy?  Are there other inhabited worlds?  What about the other galaxies?  Surely, it is asserted, there must be life out there somewhere.  The odds seems to be for that assertion.
    The problem, of course, is that we have no real idea.  To say that there IS life out there is an act of faith since we have no evidence.  It might seem like arrogance for us to think we are the only sentient beings in the universe; actually, it should be an act of humility.
    The plain truth is that we are the only sentient beings in the universe that we know of.  It may very well be a fact that amidst this gigantic, unfathomable universe of stars and galaxies and planets, ours may be the only planet with life of any kind including beings like ourselves.  Our planet is perfectly situated at the right distance from the right kind of star to contain life as we know it. While this may be poopooed by those scientists and others who think there must be life out there (and I support efforts to find earth-like planets that may have some kind of life), it is an act of faith in something to believe life exists other places.  I find it interesting that those who assert science as their mantra and refuse to accept faith as a means to knowledge will make an act of faith in what is unobservable.
    Nevertheless, how marvelous it is to consider that God created a universe of such magnificence just for us!  And in this beautiful little world of ours exists a universe all its own of creatures and plants and so many other marvels. 
    Gazing at the stars can make us feel small and insignificant, but all that we can or could see is nothing compared to what God has done for us in giving us not only this beautiful world, but Himself.