This talk was given in a recent chaplaincy assembly by Dr. Andrew Davies, a colleague of mine at St. Louis Priory School. Andrew has a background in astrophysics and he uses this knowledge to underpin his talk which encouraged students to think about what their guiding light is. This talk was so powerful that I thought it deserved a greater audience beyond those in the school community. Thank you for agree it share it, Andrew. (Tim Woodcock)
When I was a college student, I gave shows in the school
planetarium to the public, talking about what was visible in the night sky that
evening. This season of Advent, I am
often reminded of the most popular question I got when I gave planetarium shows
in December: “What exactly was the Star of Bethlehem?”
This question has two answers: a short one and a long
one. The short answer: we don’t know.
Boring, but truthful. But, since my
students know the best way to distract me in class is to get me talking about
Astronomy, I’m going to give you the long answer too. There are lots of possibilities it could have
been. It could have been a supernova
explosion that signified the death of a massive star as it finally ran out of
fuel in its giant nuclear furnace. As
the fusion stops, the outer layers of the star collapse down onto the core, and
then bounce back in an incredibly energetic explosion, sending light and gas
outwards at high speeds. This supernova
would have burned brightly for weeks or even months, and then eventually faded
away, perhaps just after the Wise Men found the Christ Child.
Another possibility is that it was the birth of a star,
beginning its billions of years of life as a new star in the sky. As stars gravitationally collapse out of
giant clouds of gas, they are initially surrounded by their parent gas
cloud. But, as the star starts shining
for the first time, its light almost burns through the gas cloud, scattering it
away. Then, the star becomes visible for
the first time as a bright new star. For
people who lived before electricity and hence knew the night sky extremely
well, a new star peeking out from behind its gas cloud would be an incredible
sight.
Yet another possibility is that it was the last dying light
of a star as it was sucked into a black hole.
That light can get bent around the hole and become much brighter than
normal for a time. Or maybe it was a bright
comet, finally coming close to the Sun after centuries in the more distant cold
of deep space. Or maybe it was a meteor,
burning brightly through the atmosphere. Or maybe it was something I haven’t thought of, which wouldn’t be too
surprising because space is huge, with lots of amazing wonders in it we are
still discovering.
My point today isn’t actually on the speculations of what
the Star of Bethlehem could have been. Rather, I want to focus in on the Wonder and Amazement it brought. There’s an old carol titled “With Wondering
Awe” which talks about the Awe the wise men had when they saw the Star. As you might have guessed from the first part
of my talk today, I feel an amazing sense of awe and wonder when I consider all
the possibilities of what is out in space. One word for this is “numinous”, which I first encountered in Carl
Sagan’s book Contact. Numinous is an adjective meaning “having the
power to invoke fear and trembling, yet create fascination and attraction;
transcendent; suggesting the presence of divinity.” For me, thinking about the vastness of space
is numinous; I am fascinated by it and what it might hold. The shepherds and
wise men surely felt this way when they searched for and found the Christ
child.
Numinous is an adjective meaning “having the power to invoke fear and trembling, yet create fascination and attraction; transcendent; suggesting the presence of divinity.” For me, thinking about the vastness of space is numinous; I am fascinated by it and what it might hold.
What is numinous for you? What brings you this incredible transcendent fascination and attraction?
In other words, what excites and interests you? Maybe you find it in the complex and intricate details of how living
creatures survive, grow, reproduce, and draw energy from the world around them. Maybe you find it in the words of poets and
authors, as they tease out ideas and themes in their words across the centuries
and across cultures. The idea that
someone living in Greece over 2000 years ago had similar feelings of grief or
love or uncertainty as you is incredible. Maybe you find a sense of wonder in the physical world of mountains,
forests, rivers, seas. Being out in
nature might bring this sense of awe and wonder to your life as you sit on a
rock at the top of a mountain, amazed at the beauty around you. Maybe you find this sense of wonder reflected
in the incredible imaginations of artists as they create works of art in many
different styles and mediums. Maybe you
find the numinous inside the walls of a church building or a monastery, or on
your knees in a small chapel, as you contemplate your beliefs in the
Divine. Or maybe even, and I know this
is a stretch, you find something numinous in a math class, as you explore
strange ideas about numbers and the infinite.
I can’t tell you where you will find the same Wonder that is
described in the Christmas account in the Scriptures. But I can tell you that if you look for it,
you will find it somewhere. Think back
to when you were young, maybe only 5 years old. You probably had something you couldn’t stop talking about. Possibly it was your favorite dinosaur. Mine
was parasaurolophus. To this day, my
mother will still bring that dinosaur up, asking me if it’s still my
favorite. I’ve moved on a bit since I
was that dino-crazed kid, but the answer is still yes. What brought you such a level of excitement
and energy that drove the adults around you crazy? Young kids often can find wonder in just
about anything around them. But as we
grow, we often lose it. Our sense of the
numinous can atrophy in the mundane, yet essential, activities of daily life:
jobs, homework, chores. There are many ways that we can fulfill the scriptural
command to become as a little child: finding wonder and awe in the world around
you is one of them I hope you will work on. Learning to endure the mundane, and see through
it to something beautiful is not easy. But I hope it can bring you purpose, excitement, and wonder to your
life, and that will make your life one worth living for. One reason Priory has you take so many
different courses is to allow you to explore so many different parts of life to
help you find something that speaks to you. I know not all of you will find astronomy as interesting and amazing and
awe-inspiring as I do, and that’s ok. But we want to help you find something that works for you to bring you
this numinous connection with the Divine.
To close, I want to end with two quotes about what brings me
wonder: space. First, from Douglas
Adams, a British author: “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly,
hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down
the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” For me, thinking about all the stars, planets,
galaxies, gas clouds, black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, red dwarfs,
brown dwarfs, nebulae and more in space is amazing. I want to see it all, to go explore it, to
understand it. But I’m also a little
afraid of it. Space is huge, and I’m so
small. How can I make a difference? To
answer that I turn to my second quote, from Carl Sagan’s Contact: “She had
studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For
small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
And so I come back to the Star of Bethlehem,
for me a symbol of Love, Light, and Beauty. As the scriptures say, Seek, and you will find. May each of you find something to fill you
with excitement, amazement, awe, and love is my hope this Christmas season.
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