I've been following the saga of the Hubble Space Telescope for a few weeks, after it was announced that the HST had pitched a fit and was apparently no longer talking to us. Scientists are trying to revive the HST by remotely switching to a backup processor, but even so, according the Science News online;
Hubble will not have its
full complement of instruments operating. Most observations with the Advanced
Camera for Surveys haven’t been possible since a short circuit that developed
early last year... In addition, because of a more recent glitch, the Near
Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer will not be immediately operating...
The HST is beginning to remind me of my car (a 1998 Plymouth Neon), which keeps on running in an admirable fashion, but also develops one mechanical hiccup after another and calls for continually renewed patience and ingenuity just to keep it going. The scientists working with the HST have probably developed a a kind of fondness for the old beast, like I have for my car. It is still a remarkable scientific instrument, though its days are clearly numbered. I'll have a mug of something special the day Hubble burns up in the atmosphere.
The images from Hubble have been astonishing, not only for their scientific value, but for their beauty. I've spent a number of hours on the Hubble Heritage Website (where I got the photo above) looking through the catalog of images there, and have shared a few in blog posts. It's an odd way to look at the stars, though, sitting at a computer screen.
I've fiddled around with a telescope and had pretty decent success... I
was thrilled to pick out Jupiter's moons the first time I had it out of
the box. I also registered Venus as a piercingly bright half-moon like
object, and was just able to make out a nebula in the Orion
constellation. Later, with a group of more serious amateur astronomers,
I looked through a telescope the size of a Howitzer and saw the white North Pole of Mars with my own eyes, as well as star clusters and planetary nebulae. That was cool.
We don't see the stars anymore, not really. I had the experience once, while camping way out in the boonies, of really seeing the stars. There was no light for many miles around except that from our dying campfire. The air was clear and the sky absolutely cloudless. There was no moon. I saw more stars than my mind, to that point, had ever conceived. The sky was so crowded with brilliant stars that I found it difficult even to pick out familiar constellations... they were simply overwhelmed in the sheer volume of stars. The Milky Way, most often a hazy presence, was a burning path. It was jaw-dropping. I stayed up looking at the stars until long past the others were asleep and the campfire nothing but glowing coals.
Our ancestors saw the stars that way until quite recently, actually. Few of us now have that experience except very rarely. I wonder how that might make us different than former generations. Our environment shapes us, contributes to who we are. The night sky - that constant reminder of the vastness and beauty and mystery of the universe - is largely absent in our world of halogen street lights and the continual artificial daylight of our home, shops and offices. In being insulated from the dangers and discomforts of the world, we are increasingly cut off from the beauty and thrill of creation.
The appetite for beauty doesn't sleep, though. As C.S. Lewis put it, "Famished nature will be avenged...". People still hunger for beauty, but in its absence they will settle for something less... big-screen television, glossy magazines, internet porn. "The eye never has its fill of seeing".
Beauty is a powerful - and necessary - nutrient. We need it, we crave it, but we moderns subsist more and more on spiritual junk food.
Good Bloggage
Paul S., at his blog Spike is Best has a thoughtful meditation on Jesus' parable of the generous landowner who pays equally for unequal work. A fellow Chestertonian, he writes well and features some fine original poetry, as well, from time to time.
Professio is a new-ish blog of Catholicism, art and culture from another Chestertonian (there can never be too many). In a recent post, he poses the question "Can It Be Done Smaller?" in a brief defense or explication of the Distributist spirit. He also asks another question that I'll deal with in another post.
Finally, Paul N. - The Aesthetic Elevator - has been musing on the concept of Beauty and includes human relationships as being among the truly beautiful (or I guess, ugly) things we can create. He also features some good quotes on the subject from people like Cardinal Henri de Lubac and C.S. Lewis. I was gratified to read his thought about the beauty of human relationships being similar to creating beauty in more temporal ways... art, music, poetry, that kind of thing.
Every Christan artist ought to try and read Tolkien's short story Leaf by Niggle, which touches on and develops this idea. He seems to confirm that in our daily decisions and relationships we create something far more durable and significant than any conceivable work of earthly art could hope to be. Our life in Christ - that aspect of our personhood that is united with and animated by his will through the Holy Spirit - exists in eternity as something solid and distinct, like an everlasting sculpture we work on every day without realizing it. We shape it by our thoughts and actions.
Paul is also depressed about scarves right now... or probably more accurately, about mass produced and mass marketed "hominess". This reminds me of all the trouble I used to go to as a teenager in order to get my jeans to wear and fade just right... then the industry giants started mass producing pre-faded and worn jeans, even including the holes and frayed cuffs.
Yesterday, I saw an ad flashed on a gas pump LED screen that read "Grandma's Cookies, 2 for $1.00". I don't know what they're selling in every gas station coast-to-coast in those little mylar pouches, but it ain't my grandma's cookies.