On my way into work this morning I had, well, it wasn’t a religious experience but it came pretty close. I immediately began wondering: how can I bottle this? Is it possible to express what I just experienced? Can words even come close? Is this sort of thing common for other people?
It starts as I was creeping along an overpass in traffic. I looked to my left and saw the sun had just made it over the horizon. It was somewhat foggy in the distance. Pink and orange sunbeams were softly glazing the tops of trees and buildings. Discerning the outline of the sun was easy. Its circularity fell off toward the bottom, gently waving back and forth in the foggy atmosphere.
Reds, pinks, and blues filled the sky. It was really an ordinary sunrise. The kind we usually take for granted. But this morning I wandered further. The sun is, what, 8 million miles away? Yet here I am, sitting in my car in traffic able to behold it plain as day. How big is this thing anyways? Huge, but not too huge. The perfect size for us. The perfect distance. The perfect sun.
Despite the chaos, here we are with the perfect sun in the perfect solar system. Trillions of wandering particles collapsed into planets at the right time and place. What was once chaos is now perfect. The perfect solar system. I am sitting in traffic looking at the perfect sun in the perfect solar system.
It was all I could do to take a picture. Pictures, like words, are utterly unjust.
Hi Cameron,
Love the site. I often have moments like this especially at night when gazing at the stars. However… how would you response to the sceptic or atheist who would say something like: “this perfect sun also gives us cancer…”
etc…
Thanks.
Hi DT1213! Thanks for checking out the blog and for offering the kind words. My purpose with this post was not to give an argument for God but rather to put into words an experience I have from time to time. It’s pretty amazing (when I’m having it) and so I wanted to do my best to bottle it. Though, as I say, words cannot at all do it justice. So to reiterate, I am not giving an argument for God here. Atheists and agnostics will interpret this kind of experience differently than I do.