An Image Of The Universe That Makes Me Feel God's Presence

This is an image of the universe:

I came across it yesterday. It's been on my mind since, and it leaped up at me this morning as I was reading a "short version" of a doctoral thesis written by a colleague who's seeking feedback. The thesis is on the subject of helping congregations and congregants "feel" the presence of God - and I realized as I was reading it that this image had that effect on me, and I thought perhaps writing about it would help me understand why. It's not a "picture" per se. It's more of a composition or an interpretation. It was made by the Argentinian artist and musician Pablo Carlos Budassi, who drew this image of the universe from the perspective of the Hubble Telescope. The edges of the picture are the farthest things that Hubble can detect; what's in the middle is, I suppose, Hubble itself - our planet, our solar system. I shared some brief reflections on this image yesterday on some of the social media sites and boards that I participate on, and I haven't really been able to let go of the image. I found it to be very moving and very inspiring. To me, when I saw it, it brought my mind immediately to a place where I could see God through this image. It brought back to my mind what were probably the first stirrings of spirituality in my life (although I wouldn't have called it that at the time) when, as a child, I developed an interest in astronomy and the universe. So vast; so immense; so mysterious. There were "places" - planets and stars and galaxies - that we could see but could never possibly visit because they were so unimaginably distant. All these places existed in the realm of mere possibilities. What would they be like if we could actually go there? But even if all we could do was speculate about them, they were still there. Looking back on it, I think that was the beginning of my journey of faith. There was more to life than what I could understand or see or experience. I think that's what made this image appealing to me.

I've seen pictures of astronomical phenomenon. Beautiful pictures that also can be very moving. But they are pictures. In a way those kinds of pictures seem to be an attempt to strip away mystery by showing me what certain things look like. One of the first "space" pictures I remember seeing as a child was of the famous horsehead nebula:

It's interesting and intriguing, but somehow it took the mystery away. It became for me what it was - a cloud of dust and gas that looked like a horse's head. It wasn't unlike looking at the clouds in the sky and seeing shapes. It's fun, but it wasn't what I would call "spiritual."

A work like Budassi's does much more for my soul, if I can put it that way. At first I was troubled by the fact that the sun and our solar system were in the centre of the picture. Necessitated as it was by the way Budassi was putting his composition together, it still seemed a bit arrogant. But the more I thought about it, the more that seemed to make a valuable point. If we do live in an infinite universe (not everyone agrees with that theory, but it has a lot of support) then the fact is that we - every single one of us - is the centre of the universe, from our perspective. We usually use a phrase like "centre of the universe" to refer to selfishness or arrogance, but perhaps this is why the Budassi image, with the sun in the middle of everything , made such an impact on me. Seeing it as Budassi drew it, I realized that being the centre of the universe doesn't make me the most important thing in the universe; nor does it mean that everything revolves around me. Instead, it means I am immersed in something much bigger - in fact, immeasurably and even inconceivably bigger than myself. Far from arrogance, if that isn't humbling then I'm not sure what is. That's when the image starts to touch my soul; that's when I start to see God in the image.

I'm not arguing here for pantheism. It's not that the universe is God or that God is the universe. Not at all. But in the 24 hours or so since I discovered it, this image has become a sort of icon for me. It draws my mind and my spirit to God. It reminds me that an infinite God - who exists beyond time and beyond space - still loves me; that I am always in the centre of an infinite and eternal God's thoughts. But it also reminds me that the same can be said for all of us. The way this image is ut together just reminds me that each one of us are a part of something much greater than our minds can comprehend - a whole, possibly infinite, universe that was created by an even more unimaginably powerful and still loving God. I've never really been much into icons, but at least for now, this image has become something of an icon for me.