to enlarge our souls

 

of NASA at its best

at our most profound

we humans crave to fill the holes of our ignorance,

to ask the largest questions

and to work hard to find the answers,

even when those answers

will not put food on the table,

will not benefit our material life in any way,

but such quests will work to meet a hunger

to know who we are,

to know from where we came,

to hazard answers

that will benefit us only in our souls,

NASA envisioned, designed, built, and deployed

the James Webb Space Telescope,

braving countless possible single point failures,

any one of which could doom the mission,

now far out in space, further away than the Moon,

this miracle of human ingenuity and execution

can look out at the universe

and sharply see and record the long span of time and space,

from over 13 billion years ago when our universe came into being,

through evolving epoch after epoch,

as galaxies are born, collide, die,

as stars are born, explode with creation, die, are reborn,

Genesis did its best to explicate Creation

and humanity's role in the whole shebang,

it filled the holes of our ignorance for a time,

now the wonder that God creates with the universe

reveals itself more and more

as we have lens, opportunity, will,

to look out and back with clarity never before possible,

with just our eyes on the darkest, clearest nights,

we can see breathtaking glory,

but those revelations pale compared to what the space telescope reveals:

countless galaxies, so common they seem everywhere,

wonder upon wonder upon wonder,

a fabulous beauty and diversity to enlarge our souls,

we are creatures who can both

have our feet in the mud

and find ourselves in the stars.

by Henry H. Walker

August 9, ‘26