A picture from space, taken by some orbiting astronauts,
intrigued me so much the other day. I saw this blue and white orb we call home,
bathed in wispy white clouds, spinning through this dark and forbidding place
we call space. The earth’s beauty
as we see it from space is spellbinding, and it is in direct contrast to the
blank black universe around it. There is an old saying “You can’t see the woods
for the trees.” Standing here on earth, that’s indicative of how I feel, and at
least what I know about the world beyond us. Usually, when we see something we
perceive as special, our next impulse is to bring it closer to us or us closer
to it. We want to use some of our other senses to bring out the real beauty of
things, such as through touching, smelling and hearing. When first seen, a rose
showcases its beauty through its color and delicate structure. But when you
smell its fragrances, and touch the intricate workmanship in its petals, you
get the real picture.
If it wasn’t for the fact that we can’t live indefinitely
out in space, and have to come back—and initially came from this earth to start
with—we might never know the real truth about what is going on down here on the
surface of this beautiful planet. Imagine if you came from somewhere else in
the universe, and for the first time saw what the astronauts are seeing and
describing from space. Would you, in your wildest imagination, think that the
inhabitants of such a place would be doing their best to destroy this planet
and each other?
Just for a moment, hang with me and let me tell you a story.
Pretend with me that you are from some other planet, and right now you are
orbiting our earth and scoping it out because where you came from is no longer
a fit place to live. Where you came from looked so much like planet earth at
one time. From the spacecraft, you peer down below the clouds, and what do you
see? Well, you hear loud explosions, women and children crying, rockets raining
down on each other. You look farther, and on one side of the earth there are
people fat and plump, and on the other side they are dying of starvation.
Mountains of corn on one side of the planet, and on the other side you can’t
see anything and—well, that’s because there isn’t anything. Why do some of them
live in mansions and others in mud huts? Why can’t they share? Why do some
people drink clear water and others have to drink their own sewage? Why are the
people that live in the good places so angry at each other?
You look at the planets vast seas, now covered with floating
garbage and an oily sheen. Your planet back home once had seas like this, too,
that teemed with fish and wildlife, but something went terribly wrong and now
they’re empty and dead. It’s getting harder to see from out here because the
atmosphere is shrouded with some kind of gas that is coming from down under. Ah
yes, burning forests and huge smoke stacks. That happened to our home, too. A
few people are looking up as if they are praying to a God. Yes, we had a God,
too, and he warned us about destroying the world that he gave us. But we paid
no attention and did it anyway, because we knew better than he. We knew better
than our God because we were smart, and had a free will to do as we pleased.
Slowly the silver spaceship drifts away . . .The end of the story.
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