God and the universe

One common thread runs through all aspects of life — the hierarchical structure. From termites to humans, in sport and business, and in religion as well.

In the heavens above us we have a clear indication of the structure of the cycle of life. In our Milky Way galaxies we find “retirement homes” and also “nurseries”. Old stars migrate to retirement homes and new stars are being formed in nurseries. There are renegade stars that take off on their own paths and become loners as they journey through the Milky Way. We have stars such as ours which support a planetary system, where we find a miracle planet — ours, which supports life.

There are also “big daddy” stars — supernovas. Throughout our galaxy and in every other galaxy we have these life-giving stars, exploding and spreading their atoms into inter-stellar space. Supernovas are replicas of the original “big bang”, which was the beginning of our universe as we know it today. So, as in a company with a managing director right down to the tea lady, we see this living structure in our universe.

Try to arrange a meeting with Nelson Mandela or George W Bush and you probably won’t succeed. But you may, if you make contact with their secretaries, office or security personnel. So in our Church we have angels and saints, we have Mary and Joseph, we have Jesus. This does not mean we cannot go straight to God himself, but my reasoning tells me we have a better chance if we contact his “personnel”. As humans, it’s much more personal that way. God has set up this structure and so doesn’t mind if we do it this way.

From an astronomical point of view, there are millions of stars in the night sky which are made of the very atoms which live in all of us and connect us to the very beginning of creation.

Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg