On Tuesday, March 2, I almost died. How dramatic. But nevertheless, factual. I “participated” mightily in the catastrophic collision of 16 piled-up cars on our local Route 1, just a routine drive between Caribou and Presque Isle.
The wind howled, snow blew, the road and air vanished in whiteness, the big crash with all its mechanical inevitability took its scientific, physical course obedient to the laws of kinematics. No questions asked. I walked away, miraculously uninjured, rescued by the kindness of the law.
But for me, on the human side, many unanswered questions arise, being somewhat traumatized. The thoughts and emotions pour out painstakingly. And to sum it all up, the old native chieftain still proclaims, “My people, I am now going to tell you the story of my life … for what is one man bent low by many winters? It is the story of all life which is holy and as is grass upon the hills; it is a story which is good to tell … and of us two-legged with the four-legged, for we are but one people, the children of our Mother, and our Father which is one Spirit.”
Microbiology Professor Mel Gershman, late of the University of Maine in Orono, challenged me often as he challenged reality in general with a simple question: “What’s it all about?” Spending those hours on Route 1, hovering between what was, what is, and what must be, I still cannot assuredly respond to Mel’s question.
But I can offer these supple signposts as, out of practical necessity, heart hardens and the brain reconfigures. 1) Life is love; love is life. 2) Life is filled with fatal dangers, both human and natural. 3) Forces exist, independent of our desires, which dwarf human dimensions. 4) Death can stalk, but it also woos. 4) The living line between existence and eternity reveals itself as terribly thin. 5) Family rules, compelling one silly, male adult to admit and embrace a whole overarching the sum of its parts.
As an astronomer and planetarium professional, I dwell in cosmic continuities, urgently introducing our community to awe and wonder, to hopefully fulfill the desire to see a more kind and compassionate population in contact with a Universe that demands our citizenship. I gently prod. Some respond, some do not. Yet at other times, truths arrive the hard way, of risks taken, or gambles lost — of luck run dry — of Jesus “taking the wheel.”
Yes, we are but one people, the children of one galaxy, of one solar system, of one planet jointly fit and moving forward, despite all our failings, to one deep, great and peaceful purpose.
Larry Berz survives and thrives among you, planetarium director of the Francis Malcolm Science Center and instructor of astronomy at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.
