For many people, a regular part of Christmas is watching the 1946 classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. In my family, this movie was on our sister Mary’s perennial “Christmas viewing agenda”. Such were Mary’s charms and powers of persuasion that we all watched.
Something that I missed over those years of watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”, is that early into the film, prayers for the protagonist George Bailey are heard by Angel Joseph and Senior Angel, who live in the group of celestial galaxies known to science as Stephan’s Quintet.
Recently, as I perused photos from the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and saw the magnificent images of Stephan’s Quintet, “It’s a Wonderful Life” came back to me. These new photos show rare detail of the process of galaxies formation and evolution – and how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other. “Sparkling clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth grace the image. Sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars are being pulled from several of the galaxies due to gravitational interactions.”1 Such marvels among us!!
Brian Swimme, a mathematical cosmologist who has long reflected on the beginnings of the universe speaks to the magnitude of such marvels:
… we are the first humans to look into the night sky and see the birth of stars, the birth of galaxies, the birth of the cosmos as a whole. We are the first generation to live with an empirical view of the origin of the universe. Our future as a species will be forged within this new story of the world.”2
It is incumbent that we apprehend this story of life’s origins, and let these new insights shape our consciousness and our choices.
Swimme’s context is cosmic and speaks to the new possibilities for our future as a species.
Thomas Berry approaches similar marvels from the context of earth, the very local milieu in a very large cosmos, where we humans live out our days. Berry speaks to our origins and future as part of Earth community, which has also been shaped by billions of years of evolution, since the originating “Big Bang”:
There is no such thing as a “human community” without earth, soil, air, water and all living forms. Without these, humans do not exist. There is, therefore no separate human community. Humans are woven into this larger community, which is the Sacred Earth Community. 3
As Berry often stresses, earth is primary, humans are derivative.
This amazing complexity and interconnection, this star-making activity of Galaxies around us, and this Sacred Earth Community from which we have emerged and are sustained with every breath, loudly proclaims that indeed it is a wonderful life.
My sister Mary died in 2016. This Christmas I am going to spend more time with the JWST photos, and imagine Mary hanging out in Stephan’s Quintet.
1 Stephan’s Quintet. Available at: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7DA5ADA2WDSK1JJPQ0PTG4A
For an interactive image see: https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images/gallery/zoomable-image-stephans-quintet
2 Brian Swimme. The Universe is a Green Dragon. Bear & Company Inc. 1984. P. 28-29.
3 Thomas Berry – cited at Green Mountain Monastery web-page. Accessed at: http://www.greenmountainmonastery.org/our-mission.php
Veronica Dunne is a Sister of our Lady of the Missions (RNDM), who has primarily worked as an educator and counsellor in institutional and community based settings in Canada. She has also served with the RNDMs outside of Canada in Senegal, Peru, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
A 2002 Doctor of Ministry graduate from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto, she subsequently served as director of the Doctor of Ministry program at St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her current research interests are in eco-theology and cosmology, and their intersections with indigenous cosmologies and spiritualties.
She presently serves on the RNDM leadership team in Canada.
What a beautiful reflection for this “pregnant” time of year and of the story of our Sacred Earth Community! Thank you, Veronica. May the stars lead us to the new consciousness we seek – and may Mary delight in Stephan’s Quintet!
“Stephan’s Quintet???” This sounds like a place I would want to visit… This line really resonated: It is incumbent that we apprehend this story of life’s origins, and let these new insights shape our consciousness and our choices. This new story is shaping our theology, spirituality, and the meaning of religious life for a future that is always coming toward us. I will visit the stars now via the JWST… thanks for the invitation and the reminder, Veronica!