Mid millions of such shapes of mine
What am I glad of, thankful for? Well, for Creation, the Universe. For life itself. Life and companionship, for the folks I love, and especially the folks who love me and loved me at Times during these ninety years.
What occupies my Time, what do I think of and about. Well again (it’s disingenuous to begin a sentence with Well, but there you go, most of us do it) - - well, the Universe mostly; if you’re theology-minded, Creation - - whether Whoever or Whatever said “yeh-hi” and loosed nature to become all-that-is really had in mind for this Earth & People experiment to go as we gave gone, and especially whether over the past 13.7 billion years (tonight I read that it could be twice that), there have been other Earths & Peoples, and perhaps are now, and further perhaps will yet be - - other Earths & Peoples in our Milky Way galaxy and in others of the currently estimated two trillion galaxies in Creation. The numbers are just too great for us to be the only one, here alone.
If so, if yes, is there a Creator, God of our doctrine, dogma, creeds, who is mindful of each one - - of each Earth & People and, more’s the wonder, mindful of each individual Person? And if the yeses are still running, has, is, does, will that Creator, for that One's own reasons, visit each Earth personally, becoming incarnate as one of its People?
See, I’m not kidding around. We believe in One God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of all that is, seen and unseen - - not that our religious formula binds other People here on Earth, much less Peoples on other Earths; but if we believe rightly, then, if there are other Earths & Peoples, then the One God is responsible for them also. What might those other Peoples be like, in God's image? - - and what might be the nature of their relationship with the One God? Schleiermacher said in each of us there is implanted a sense of the infinite - - presumably that goes also for Peoples of other Earths throughout the Milky Way and the Universe, eh?
In all this, Thomas Hardy exploring the absence, forgetfulness, or indifference of God comes to mind **
--"The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race? By Me created? Sad its lot? Nay: I have no remembrance of such place: Such world I fashioned not." -
--"O Lord, forgive me when I say Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." -
"The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea! I dimly do recall Some tiny sphere I built long back (Mid millions of such shapes of mine) … .”
"Mid millions of such shapes"? How unique and special are we? How many Earths & Peoples have come into being, lived into their solar system’s lifecycle, and been red-gianted into oblivion over the past 13+ billion years, as our Earth & Peoples will be done in some five billion years?
And what of septillion, sextillion, quadrillions of (Earth) years hence when the Universe itself will have slowed, stopped, burned out and cooled to ashes and dust and finally absolute-zeroed to nothing?
Who and What will the One God be then? And all the souls supposedly gathered round the One’s throne?
Or does all that depend on the faithful believer to even Be; and once the last faithful believer is gone is the game up?
And in that YHVH, EHYEH, the One, IS, when all is said and done, does the One's Being depend on us who believe? μὴ γÎνοιτο.
What are the One’s characteristics? Someone wrote that the One has a single characteristic: Grace. Are the One's characteristics whatever Faithful Believers codify, which varies from one Believers’ group to another?
From Jenson and Bell, "Who or What is God? Mixing imaginations* and metaphors, God is Whoever or Whatever said “yeh-hi,” “let there be!” and it was so. God is Whoever or Whatever led Israel out of Egypt. God is Whoever or Whatever sent his Spirit to visit childless women - - Sarai/Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary. God is Whoever or Whatever invited Mary and she said "Yes." God is Whoever or Whatever Jesus called “Abba,” “Father,” “Daddy.” God is Whoever or Whatever stepped into Jesus’ tomb on a Sunday morning, said, “Get up, Son,” and they went home to color Easter eggs.
My thoughts close incomplete.
RSF&PTL
T90
various images depicting the Universe, and from NASA
* Robert Jenson and Martin Bell
** Thomas Hardy: “God-Forgotten”
I towered far, and lo! I stood within
The presence of the Lord Most High,
Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win
Some answer to their cry.
--"The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race?
By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
Such world I fashioned not." -
--"O Lord, forgive me when I say
Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." -
"The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea!
I dimly do recall
"Some tiny sphere I built long back
(Mid millions of such shapes of mine)
So named . . . It perished, surely--not a wrack
Remaining, or a sign?
"It lost my interest from the first,
My aims therefor succeeding ill;
Haply it died of doing as it durst?" -
"Lord, it existeth still." -
"Dark, then, its life! For not a cry
Of aught it bears do I now hear;
Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby
Its plaints had reached mine ear.
"It used to ask for gifts of good,
Till came its severance self-entailed,
When sudden silence on that side ensued,
And has till now prevailed.
"All other orbs have kept in touch;
Their voicings reach me speedily:
Thy people took upon them overmuch
In sundering them from me!
"And it is strange--though sad enough -
Earth's race should think that one whose call
Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff
Must heed their tainted ball! . . .
"But say'st thou 'tis by pangs distraught,
And strife, and silent suffering? -
Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought
Even on so poor a thing!
"Thou should'st have learnt that Not to Mend
For Me could mean but Not to Know:
Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end
To what men undergo." . . .
Homing at dawn, I thought to see
One of the Messengers standing by.
- Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me
When trouble hovers nigh.