I have just seen the film “The First Man” (the Neil Armstrong story). For me, perhaps the most emotional moments were two views of the earth - one when circling the earth and the other from the moon.
Distance gives everything a perspective like no other. Circling the earth high enough to be able to be truly in awe of this beautiful world we call our home. It’s human inhabitants – even In our collective billions – become invisible from that distance. Mere mortals who come and go in the blink of a celestial eye.
Awesome then must it be to stand in the utter silence of the moon, the earth becoming just another white orb in the endless blackness of the universe. Subject totally to the unfathomable whims of first the sun and then…who knows what?
Beings from another planet would naturally wonder, “is there life on earth?”. They would readily come to appreciate the nature and role of the millions of flora and fauna that keep our earthly environment healthy. But the humans? Are they a life-giving part of the earth’s natural growth, or a pandemic that exists to destroy? We wonder.
We are part of nature, not above it. Nature demonstrates so much to us about how we humans can truly grow, flourish, mature and blossom, each to our own unique natural potential.
Human nature is not an oxymoron.
