To the limits of our very advanced capabilities, the universe is dead.
We can see almost to the limits of the universe, but not a peep. Anywhere.
Not a microbe anywhere we've reached. Not the moon. Not even a micro-fossil on Mars.
An unimiginably vast universe with trillions of galaxies each with trillions of stars.
Not just dead, but apparently never having hosted life. Ever.
Eternal emptiness.
Except for here, of course. Here, the most inhospital places teem with life. Hydrothermic vent ecosystems at the bottom of the ocean; microbes at the South Pole. If your driveway has a crack, you better get some Roundup.
We're spending billions looking for germs on Mars and soon we'll be probing icy moons around the Gas Giants for life in their subsurface oceans. Are we actually alone?
A weed on Mars would turn our world on its head, but at best we might find some algae at its polar ice caps. Maybe evidence of long-extent algae or mold.
This is likely to be the apex of our potential cosmic company. Cold comfort?
Here, crowding and commonplace flip the script. Universal Miracles saturate our every waking moment. "My hike was ruined because the trail was so busy."
We fully recognize the miraculousness of life, when? At birth. IF we know the parents (particularly if we ARE the parents).
And we recognize the preciousness of time, when? In sickness and at death.
The sheer variety of personality and the pressure on our time force us to filter out, to exclude - to shun - so that we don't "waste our time."
In our "optimizing", we are drawn to those like us.
We prioritize, we differentiate, we lesser, we Other - some Other to solidify their "Us Bond".
We favor, we neglect.
We let suffer, we let die. Ultimately, we kill, sometimes en masse. Maybe not directly, but by proxy, with our tools of killing.
The Slaughter of Miracles. It's hard to fathom, and yet it is so common, we spend our time in Fantasy Football leagues.
Or we spend some free time at a telescope. Another distraction? Yes.
But it's very difficult to look at the wonder of the universe and not feel awe. At the universe. At being alive to witness it. To know that EVERYTHING you see there is dead and that everything here is explosively alive. How unique we are. What a miracle that weed in the driveway crack is. That our friends' brains are perhaps the most amazing development in the history of the universe. That our "enemies" and "the poor" and the Others are miracles.
A telescope reminds me that it is the most jaw-dropping incomprehensible billions-of-years-in-the-making privilege to be alive and to be capable of seeing and feeling - anything at all!
Only glowing gas is visible in the scope, but it triggers the knowlege of the miracle, the wonder, the joy, of the births of billions of babies.
Against all odds, you are alive.
For just an instant.
Live!