Do you hear what I hear?

“Let anyone with ears listen!” ~ Matthew 11:15

And we were listening … and we heard a ‘chirp'. And what were we listening to - nothing less than outer space!

Galileo’s telescope gave us the eyes to see with, and now scientists have added the ear with which to hear.

While I don’t even pretend to understand what gravitational waves can be, nor the science that has gone into proving this theory of Einstein’s that even he doubted, what I can understand is that this has opened up new frontier of human knowledge. Whatever it shows us, whatever it reveals about what is out there, about the whys and the wherefore of interstellar space, will lead us into a deeper understanding and appreciation for this universe… and thereby, for ourselves.

Galilei Galileo’s invention led to him being tried by the Inquisition, found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, forced to recant and to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. Yet he gave us theeye to see with.

Are we going to see a similar backlash against this newest discovery from some in the religious establishment? There are those who deny the reality of global warming and treat evolution as a bad word. What will they make of this newest discovery I wonder. Will this be seen as threatening their worldview?

We owe it to ourselves and to our god, to explore, to reflect on, to incorporate into our worldview those things that are being discovered daily that are new; that are threatening perhaps, or that challenge our understandings. And then to accept that challenge working the new understandings into our worldview.

It is indeed an exciting time in which we are living. New discoveries like the gravitational waves push the frontiers of science, archeological digs are challenging our concepts of the past, medical breakthroughs have extended our lives. If we do anything other than say ‘thank you’ and use the new-found knowledge to better all of humankind, we should be apologizing to our god [whatever and whoever that might be] for not using the resources that have been given to us.

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” Matthew 13:16

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