Earthbound Eyes Can E'er but See

Photo by Armen Caroglanian

Earthbound eyes can e’er but see

Causes circumstantially.
Lift your eye to heaven’s view:

He who forged the stars formed you.

-- K. Hartnett, November 1998

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb; I am the Lord, who alone stretched out the heavens; who spread out the earth by myself. (Isaiah 44:24)
 
The Orion Nebula - Beauty Wrapped in Clouds

The Great Nebula in Orion is considered by many astronomers to be the finest example of a diffuse nebula visible from earth.  Located below the three easily-recognized stars that form Orion’s belt, this magnificent sight is simply a vast cloud of low density gas and dust illuminated by nearby stars.  At the heart of the nebula, visible only as a bright white glow in this photograph, is a small cluster of stars known as the Trapezium.  This grouping is easily seen in amateur-sized telescopes.  Many think that the stars of this nebula are in the process of coalescing from the material surrounding them, although the precise nature of this process is poorly understood.  The nebula appears to be about 1500 light years away, making its true size in space approximately 30 light years across.

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. (Psalm 102:25)

We learn through studying astronomy that the earth is not the only existing planetary world.  If one never looked into the heavens, however, one might not easily come to this appreciation of reality.  In a similar way, minds that are focused on temporal and visible  things miss the reality that a sovereign Being governs them all.  Without this understanding, life can seem haphazard and purposeless.  In this poem I use a play on words to equate the lifting our eyes to see the heavens, with the lifting of our spiritual vision to an immaterial, heavenly view.   Since the heavens actually declare the glory of God, a humble study of them can marvelously increase our spiritual understanding as well.