On a recent late winter morning, I found myself standing at my bus
stop with time to spare. A sunny day, despite the chill, led me to
feel and see the sunlight for what it appears to be. For it
originates from our local star some 93 million miles away. That
distant star – 93 million miles is so far away that is takes that
light nine minutes to reach us – shines so brightly that it brings
our daytime existence into fully luminous reality stronger than any
light source produced by man or earth-bound nature. That we have
this eternal and free source of light seemed freshly amazing to me at
that moment. Now, one can argue, quite rightly, that the light of
the sun appears bright and sufficient for our purposes because after
several hundred million years eyes have evolved in response to what
was available. But it also illuminates Mars and even Pluto is a way
that allows us – via our cameras – to see what
they look like on their surface. I’m just saying….
Under
that light, I watched people going by on their own business. And,
again, not a novel thought, but I saw each of them as the center of a
universe as real as the one I see myself in the center of. All of us self-contained, full blown individual realities rushing past each other. In the
day-to-day crush of people and events in the 21st
Century, the tendency to solipsism may not be just my sin.
