Monday, December 24, 2012

gravitation which is the life and spirit of God

From the NASA Space Advent Calendar which is HERE.

 Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, this is a close-up look at one of the brightest distant "magnified" galaxies in the universe known to date. It is one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, where the gravitational field of a foreground galaxy bends and amplifies the light of a more distant background galaxy. In this image the light from a distant galaxy, nearly 10 billion light-years away, has been warped into a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. The galaxy cluster lies 5 billion light-years away. The background galaxy's image is not only stretched by the lensing, but split into multiple apparent images, across the upper left and at lower right.
(NASA, ESA, J. Rigby, and K. Sharon, M. Gladders, and E. Wuyts, University of Chicago)

I entered into the everlasting movement
of that gravitation
which is the very life and spirit of God:
God's own gravitation toward the depths
of his own infinite nature,
his goodness without end.

And God,
that center who is everywhere
and whose circumference is nowhere,
finding me,
through incorporation with Christ,
incorporated into this immense
and tremendous gravitational movement
which is love
which is the Holy Spirit,
loved me.

And he called out to me
from his own immense depths.

-Thomas Merton, Seven Story Mountain, p. 274 

6 comments:

  1. Beth, thank you for your beautiful post. I also know that "He called out to me."

    God bless you. I pray that you and your family and friends have a Blessed Christmas !

    Brian

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    Replies
    1. Thanks you, Brian - a blessed Xmas to you and your family!

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  2. Gravitation, gravitation.. Within and without...LOVE....and 5billion light years of it.....in fathomable and God, the 5 billion light years of stars and Love, in dwelling in each of us......the merriest of Christmases.... Thank you Beth!
    Sandy

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  3. Well into the season, a friend told me about "louie, louie." I find your pairings of Merton's writings with the NASA Advent Calendar are spectacular: thank you. Being so taken with your blog, I have been printing out one a post a day, and only now have reached December 24. Alas, something is goofy with that particular post. I have no problem with the posts on either side of it. However, I cannot print Jan 6, either. Maybe some code snuck into both of them ...

    ReplyDelete

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