More on "Cosmos"

8.3 billion is a very large number, admittedly much less than the national debt of $21 trillion, but still a very large number. In our personal experience, 100 years is a long time, noted by the relatively few who live that long. In terms of our species, Homo Erectus dates to approximately 200,000 years ago. It would require 405,000 times the 200,000 to reach 8.3billion, the approximate age of the universe.

It is such an awesome number that is fundamentally incomprehensible to me. To think that I am a part of this history essentially staggers my imagination. As referenced in a recent blog, I appreciate Neil deGraase Tyson’s “Cosmos” series even though the realities captured by astronomy is beyond my grasp.

With what is known, it is as spiritual an event, as I can experience, to think that I am a part of this ongoing story of our universe.

I had my first insight into evolution when I read the books by Pierre Theilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit paleontologist, some 55 years ago. I was both intellectual excited and emotionally moved. I could experience my oneness with the universe which he envisioned as all alive, i.e., inanimate objects, e.g., stones, were “living”, as he defined it. Everything was sacred. I understood and absorbed his understanding.

In more recent years, others have contributed to my understanding of evolution, e.g., Dairmuid O’Murcho.  At this point, I am experiencing Tyson’s “Cosmos” as a spiritual event since I am unable to understand in any real sense how we are part of a universe that (1) started 8.3 billion years, (2) evolved over the eons of time so that eventually Mother Earth was formed (4.5 billion years ago) and (3) evolved during the next billion years to the point where any life could be sustained. Homo Erectus (before Homo Sapiens) would not appear until another 4.5 billion years. 

The physics and astronomy of the Cosmos may exceed my intelligence, but I am conscious of being involved in a fantastic experience that continues to evolve. It is as spiritual an experience that I will ever have and it is sufficient to give me peace.