Cultivating a Sense of Awe

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Scientists, according to a recent article on the National Public Radio web site, have discovered that what formerly appeared to be empty space at the edges of the known universe emit unexplained light. This apparently means that we’re far from really knowing where those “edges” are.

“In fact,” says the article, “the amount of light coming from mysterious sources was about equal to all the light coming in from the known galaxies….” One of these scientists says that “for 400 years, astronomers have been studying visible light and the sky in a serious way and yet somehow apparently missed half the light in the universe."

“So what?” some may ask. “How does that affect my life?”

Observant and Thoughtful

Ok, it doesn’t affect us like the price of gasoline or the weather or the risks of getting COVD-19, but it affect us, nonetheless, if we’re observant and thoughtful.

In my view, the universe was already inconceivable in its enormity, making you feel like the size of a molecule compared to say, the Pacific Ocean. So the discovery that it is even more immense is simply hard for the brain to register. But it’s another reason to try to put things in perspective.

To me, an appreciation of the discoveries of astronomy and the other sciences – even with my barely basic understanding – helps in cultivating the proper sense of awe about our lives, our existence, and the phenomena that are still mostly a mystery.

An article by Gretchen Reynolds in a recent article in the New York Times puts it this way.

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“Feeling a sense of awe also seems to up our overall feelings of gladness and improve health. A somewhat nebulous emotion, awe generally is defined as the sense that you are in the presence of something larger and more consequential than yourself and that this something is mysterious and ineffable.”

Such a sense of awe, I believe, is essential in the search for God. Without it, we don’t really understand what the Bible and religious tradition has to say about God. The Hebrew Bible, especially, may seem so antiquated that it has little to say to us today. But even with all our advances in technology and knowledge, we’re only slightly more capable of understanding reality than people of the biblical age.

The Hebrew Bible is shot through with expressions of awe about God. Some people may doubt the stories of God’s early revelations to the Hebrews, but whatever happened to ancient Jews to plant such ideas, their sense of the awesomeness of God is undeniable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the psalms, estimated to have been written between 1,400 and 550 BC.

For me, Psalm 8 expresses it best.

“When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him?”

Sense of Awe Essential

These ideas may seem primitive, but in my view this sense of awe is essential in acquiring even the flimsy understanding that we must have if searching for God in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Some (but by no means all) scientists say there’s no need for God in explaining the existence of the universe. But it has to be said that the origin and extent of the universe appears to be as much a mystery to scientists as God is to believers and non-believers.

What we can share with scientists is the awe that we have in observing the universe. Cultivating this awe is not easy in our time, when we are bombarded daily by seemingly “awesome” discoveries and inventions. But, in my view, a sense about what is truly awesome is part of seeing reality as it really is.