4-10

This was quoted in a sermon yesterday and caught my attention:

If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity. – C.S. Lewis

 

Mauna Kea Observatory

 

“The boundary between heaven and hell

cannot be seen until we cross over.

It is like an ‘event horizon’” this astronomer said.

 

“You can only know ‘across’ when your weight

falls on the other side.”

 

We traded jibes through sunset.

 

“There is only weight in hell” she began.

“There’s no gravity in heaven” I supposed.

“There is pure darkness in hell.”

“There is no shadow in heaven.”

“There are no windows in hell.”

“There are no mirrors in heaven.”

 

She focused at the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion.

 

“It is 1,500 light years distant. Is hell there?”

We viewed a pink cloud of ionized gas defining the Horsehead.

 

“Maybe hell is where you are frozen in place,

shivering in blackness save distant stars,

always conscious on some icy moon

drifting forever in the Horsehead Nebula.”

 

Driving home before dawn, above whirring tires

Orion’s three stars began singing, dripping harmonies

on my windshield, watering my eyes.

 

Suddenly a sharp curve—no time to break, or blink—

 

.           .

 

Reading the news about yesterday’s visitor

plummeting like a comet off Mauna Kea’s road

the astronomer thought “Dark as Orion’s eye”

 

before she keyed in the night’s viewing.