A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The heavens declare His righteousness, And all the peoples see His glory. Psalm 97:6

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. –Carl Sagan

Yesterday was a pretty full day: an early morning walk where I actually talked to a neighbor lady sitting on her front porch, tackling the repairing of Mary Anne’s so-many-years-ago tattered quilt, riding over to the Complete Streets Stakeholders Dialogue at the very cool Fire Central Place where I met some more very cool neighbor folks and filled the walls with sticky note dreams, hanging out with mom and helping her work through the primary election ballot, sharing some yummy snacks with Dre and Adam at America Eats, and joining in with 43 others on the sunset bike ride from Julian Wash facing right into the crazy beautiful sunset clouds over the Catalinas and which ended at the new Mercado Annex for a song, a trivia game, and a Happy 243 Birthday cake for Tucson. I won a t-shirt but quickly gave it away. Then home again, home again, to roasted cauliflower, a glass of Trader Joe's red blend and a happy chill with my roommate Maria. 

But upon reflection the next morning as I face my 10,000 Reasons list, I think the thing that impacted me the most was meeting Kirsten and Jonathan Phillips at the Public Brewhouse. And it was not so much even hanging out with them and hearing a bit about the rough but hopeful switchbacks and forth of their pilgrimage and watching their two beautiful and very hip children do their quiet and thoughtful thing, but in the background was Cameron Hood and his guitar. And his book. It was Public Brewhouse’s third year anniversary, and for some reason they were having a groovy back-to-the-70s theme that I appropriately dressed for by wearing my Marcia Grant high school gift of a dress straight from an Israeli commune. And the event had psychedelic flower power stickers and Mister Rogers posters. And Carl Sagan. Cameron was dressed up as his favorite scientist in a reddish maroon turtleneck and camel-colored polyester jacket and his first set was way-out-there space songs that attempt to capture the wonder of it all. And every few songs, Cameron would read excerpts of Sagan’s, and even though it didn’t really feel like we all were listening too well, I bet I wasn’t the only one who was profoundly shaken from my distracted prattling.

As I lay on the warm earth on Signal Hill last night I asked God the question: "Why is it that Thou dost allow us on this earth to do nearly all the talking? Why do we not always hear Thy voice, since Thou art so much wiser than we are?"

Oh, if we only let God have His full chance He will break our hearts with the glory of His revelation. February 25,1931, Letters by a Modern Mystic, Frank Laubach

May it be so.