Seeing Astronomical Bodies is like Seeing God

http://www.billfrymire.com/gallery/earth-moon-sun-space.jpg.html

45 The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night, and the stars also give their light, as they roll upon their wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God.

46 Unto what shall I liken these kingdoms, that ye may understand?

47 Behold, all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.

48 I say unto you, he hath seen him; nevertheless, he who came unto his own was not comprehended. (D&C 88:45-48, emphasis added)

In what way is seeing astronomical bodies like seeing God moving in His majesty and power?

It’s a strange irony that the further away a planet is, the less awesome it seems. The moon is the closest other astronomical body to us, and yet we take it for granted. The further we are, the less we see of all the fascinating individual features and the more likely we are over-simplify our understanding of it.  But the closer we get, the greater it becomes in our view until we get so close that our finite minds can no longer grasp its vastness and all its characteristics.

It’s the same with God. The further we are from Him spiritually, the less we understand of Him, the less awesome He seems (to the point He seems not awesome at all), the less we see of His character. Thus, we greatly oversimplify His idea, and that distorts our knowledge even more.  But the closer we draw to God, the greater and more majestic His perfections become until our finite minds simply explode, unable to comprehend Him fully.

Another case in point: we’re so close to this earth we stand on, and can we fully comprehend its size and complexity and elegant systems? No. In the same way, mortal man was completely unable to grasp the full majesty and power of Christ during His mortal ministry among them.

 (Scroll down to see some related animated GIFs)

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

Christ as the power by which the Sun was made

Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. (D&C 88:7)

If we look at this only scientifically, it seems absurd. Suns form with gravitation that pull all that hydrogen together, and suns shine because of nuclear fusion.

But looking deeper, I think I can see spiritual principles hiding in the science.

What is gravity, but greatness attracting others into itself over greater distances? The spiritual force of gravity comes from the commandment to “Love the Lord with all our heart, might, mind, and strength” and “draw near unto God.”

What is fusion, but the process of achieving unity between two separate things in such a way as to produce synergistic energy?  That sounds to me a lot like reconciliatory atonement. It says something about what marriage could be too.

Not that all the mathematical details are revealed in above verse, but in its masterful summary, it gives a way we can orient the science toward the gospel, according to a divine pattern.

Also we get this little statement—“which truth shineth.”  To me, this says something about truth as information, and how it acts.  It shines. It also says to me that the shining is the medium or way truth is transmitted.  To communicate truth, you need the message and the medium.  Truth is the message, light is the medium, and it acts so as to increase the energy of the destination system by little packets.  With reference to suns, light is the medium that gives us the message that that fusion is taking place there.  Light is the sign (or message) of energy release.

But what about other truth? We get truth from little marks on a page. The medium is the marks—their shape and order—and the message is the thing they communicate. If it increases the energy and edification in your system, it’s truth.

All of this can get very philosophical pretty quick and go over our heads. Explanations can get more difficult to follow than the plain words of the scriptures. (Heck, when I read over what I wrote above, my mind is a bit boggled too.) But I think we each have a duty to try to unpack the meaning for ourselves and test how far the patterns fit or don’t. 

And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; (D&C 88:11)

Just like light comes in little packets (quanta), we are enlightened in packets of truth, which eventually show us patterns of how things are.  Everything we read, everything we see adds or diminishes our knowledge of how things are. Every word on the page adds up to a thought that enlightens us or darkens us.  And it seems that is why God wants us to learn so many things—so we can grasp the underlying patterns and learn the laws of nature and choose to live the celestial laws so we can receive celestial glory.

The call to repentance in the earth’s rotation

Recently I was thinking about the symbolism of days in the scriptures, analyzing it, and I thought to myself, “What phenomena creates a day’s time?” and of course the answer was, the rotation of the earth away from the sun and then toward the sun.

It hit me that that motion of turning away from and toward the sun in such a short period of time is a great physical analog for man’s spiritual condition—prone to wander, turning away from God, then to turn back when we find ourselves in darkness.

One thing is different though. It is a good thing the earth doesn’t stop turning and face the sun and stay; one side of the earth would get baked and the other side would freeze. But what would happen if we faced Christ and never turned away?  We might worry we’d wither under the weight of His glorious demands, but will we really?  Surely not. He will help us grow to meet them.

Another message lies in the difference between our perspective on earth versus what is really happening astronomically.  It looks to us like the sun is rising in the sky, then falling and leaving. It looks like the sun is moving toward us, then away. But in actuality, it is us turning toward or away from the sun.  In the same way, when we turn away from Christ, it seems as if God is leaving us, but it is always us doing the leaving.  But our perspective blinds us to what is really happening.

So when the day starts, ask yourself how you are going to turn to the Son of God, Jesus Christ, today. When the day ends, ask yourself what you need to repent of, and then turn to God quickly before you have to fall into a spiritual midnight.

 Animated gif found at: http://media.photobucket.com/user/vicki12078/media/Earth-spinning.gif.html?filters[term]=spinning%20earth&filters[primary]=gif&filters[secondary]=images&sort=1&o=0

The heavens, they are many

Image: http://thingstolookathigh.com/outer-space-stars/

And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine. (Moses 1:37)

That word “heavens” is baffling.  We know only one sky and one space, so it is hard to say in what manner there can be many.  Because if there are many heavens, then that means there is a discrete and discernable boundary between one and another.  Meteorology has advanced to the point that it can detect pressure gradients in the atmosphere and cold and warm fronts and temperature differences, but that makes sky into amorphous flowing blobs; it doesn’t result in a countable sky.  And it only has to do with earth.    So there must be other astronomical bodies that must have their own heavens with their own characteristics.  And probably space has its own “weather” and gradients and concentrations of particles.

And God can quantify all of this!  He is the ultimate scientist. 

Lesser Lights, Greater Lights

14 And the Gods organized the lights in the expanse of the heaven, and caused them to divide the day from the night; and organized them to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years;
15 And organized them to be for lights in the expanse of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so.
16 And the Gods organized the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; with the lesser light they set the stars also;
17 And the Gods set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to cause to divide the light from the darkness. (Abraham 4:14-17)

Recently in our family scripture study, my husband and I read through these verses. A few days later, we were out on a late night walk next to a canal that runs near our subdivision and the full moon was beginning to rise in the sky to our right. There were no streetlights along the canal, so we were thankful for that moon-gleam.

My husband must have been ruminating on the moon because he turned to me and said, “I think it is interesting how the light of the moon is bright enough that we can see each other and where we are going. I can see you, I can see the road we are walking on, and if I didn’t know the sun existed, I might think this was all I needed.”

Then he said, “I think it is also interesting that in life some people are like the sun. They always seem to be at their best, even when it’s hard. You can always count on them. Then there are other people who are like the moon. They seem to go through waxing and waning cycles in which part of the time they set a pretty good example and then another part of the time they don’t, or they even seem to disappear. You can’t always count on them.”

I thought that was an interesting perspective on degrees of glory. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that before. It was also unexpected to have an observation like that come through consideration of the creation story.

But what he said definitely made me want to be like the sun. Sometimes I feel too much like a body that waxes and wanes. I go through stages in which I gladly project what I stand for, but then I go through stages in which I find myself searching for more, and I feel like I become like some sort of sun-sponge, trying to soak in as much good as I can from the everything around me in preparation for the next solar flare or solar prominence. During my really rough times I feel like I’m a black hole of neediness, sucking the strength out of everyone. (Deep down I know I’m really not, but sometimes I feel that way.)

When I was taking an astronomy in class, I learned that our sun goes through an internal cycle by which it tries to maintain something called “hydrostatic equilibrium”. (The “hydro” part is in there because the sun is made out of hydrogen). The cycle goes like this: The hydrogen in the core fuses together to produce helium, and in the process, creates energy (heat and light). The explosiveness of the process causes the sun to expand. But the gravity of the star causes the mass of the star to contract into the center. When these expansive and contractive forces are balanced, there is equilibrium. But there is constant rebalancing.

I figure our lives are kind of like this when we have different demands and priorities pulling at us. We achieve a kind of equilibrium by balancing and rebalancing, correcting and re-correcting.

Something I also learned was about sunspots. I learned that sunspots happen as the sun’s magnetic field is twisted by its rotation, kind of like a rubber band wrapped multiple times around a ball. The tension causes little magnetic storms called sunspots and eventually the tension breaks and then the twisting starts again. Yes. Suns feel tension too. Suns have storms too. And they are visible to others, but it doesn’t affect the amount of light we are getting to a dangerous degree.

I think that says to me that it is natural to have tension in our lives and have those storms from time to time. Just because we have that doesn't mean we aren't doing our best and doesn't mean we aren't on track towards eternal life in the celestial kingdom. It says to me that the good effect we have and the light that we share is far greater than the tension we deal with.

Image: Third Grade Discoveries, http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blog_id=826749.

Inage: Windows to the Universe, http://www.windows.ucar.edu/sun/images/sunspots_big_jpg_image.html

Spiritual parallels to the Kitt Peak National Observatory

Last Saturday was very fun; we went to Kitt Peak (7,000 feet high) to see the observatories there on the top. I was especially excited to know that there was a solar observatory there; I remembered my astronomy teacher Mr. Firebaugh talking about it in class my senior year of high school. (It’s been twelve years and I still remember it; that’s the influence of a great teacher.)

As we were driving up the road to Kitt Peak, I was amazed at how high over the valley it was; it was possible to see for miles. It reminded me of how mountains were used as temples in the ancient world. And I thought, “How significant that the place that is chosen for viewing the heavens also gives excellent perspective for the earth as well."



This is a diagram from the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak. Yes, they point that thing at the sun, but they don’t stare into it, because that would make them go blind. Instead they project an image of the sun deep into the ground and study the image. You don’t know how excited I was to see this thing in real life!!


Here’s what the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory looks like. It makes me think that something is going to be launched out of it into space.


The sun comes in this opening in the McMath-Pierce telescope.


Some lenses in the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory. (sorry about the red tint; I was struggling with my flash)

In the McMath-Pierce telescope, the sun goes down that shaft into the furthest reaches of the pit where it hits a mirror and bounces back up where it is reflected into another shaft straight downward.

Light from the sun eventually makes its way through these holes in the ceiling of the McMath-Peirce Observatory…



…to the equipment below. I caught sight of some lenses in that pile of stuff. If you look carefully you can see the bright areas where the sunlight is being projected.



This is the solar projection for us tourists to Oooo and Ahhh over. (I really wanted to see some sunspots, but evidently this is a particularly calm time for the sun.) Still, this was REALLY cool!

I thought how interesting it was that it is impossible to look directly at the sun without being blinded and that we really can’t endure it, so we make instruments that project an image of the sun onto the earth that we can study. In the same way, we can’t look directly into the celestial kingdom; we can’t see into heaven unless we are prepared for it. It is too bright and holy; it might destroy us. Instead, we take the light that we receive and we try to project an image of heaven onto earth, and that image is something that we can work with. It’s called Zion. We study and analyze Zion, we try to fit ourselves for that. We look to the people who teach us about it, and we call them prophets, seers, and revelators. We also have the temple, that mountain where we can set our sights on the Lord and the things of eternity and receive light and knowledge through the instruments He has given us which are the ordinances revealed.

I thought too that it was interesting that Kitt Peak didn’t have just one observatory. It had many. It had 25 telescopes on that mountain, each with its respective job to do. All of them were receiving data about the heavens, all of them had their projects. Many people were involved and many people were taking their turn to see the heavens and study the stars. Isn’t that so like the church? We have all these apostles and leaders in the church, each with their special duties and responsibilities. They take their turn, and then they are called home to God.

Something else too that was very exciting was that they have these telescopes that are so advanced now and are gathering so much data that they don’t have enough people to analyze it. They want to dump it to the internet for everyone to work on; they want to distribute the load. Isn’t that so much like the church? The Lord wants everyone to do their part, and wants everyone to receive revelation and act in their calling according to the will of the Lord. He wants to bring us into the work of the Lord too.