The Hubble telescope has transformed the way we humans see the universe. We knew it was large and expensive but none of us perceived the vastness and enormity of it all. We are learning that there are billions of galaxies along with billions of individual stars within these galaxies. The matter that makes up all of this is incomprehensible. Our planet is truly an imperceptible speck in the cosmos. Hubble serves as a metaphor for more than galaxies and planets. It serves as reminder that there is a cosmos in everything we see if we’ll stop and think about it.
There are trillions of snowflakes that combine to make a beautiful winter scene, trillions of grains of sand that form the beaches of the seashore, and billions of blades of grass that combine to make a verdant landscape. There are billions of people who create nations, cultures and traditions–and billions before them that created a rich history from which we all derived.
There is infinite variety in music, art, literature, philosophy, religion and science. The art that lines the walls of the Louvre in Paris is but a mere representation of the greatest art that has ever been produced. Were every single art work removed from its spaces, there are just as many that could replace them–and infinitely more that have been lost to the ravages of time.
There is infinite variety in the way we understand our relationship to the cosmos. Uncounted philosophies and religions all point to a grand and unified cosmos that can never be fully understood or imagined. We believe that all of this came from a singular source of infinite particles–though where all it came from and how it was produced is anyone’s guess.
Finally, there is an entire cosmos that exists in the loving relationship between two people–and just as much wonder and awe. We are a cosmos living among an infinity of cosmos about us.