The wave of the turning earth.
One night, many years ago, my perspective of the world was changed immeasurably. I was flying home to England from Los Angeles, on a flight that had experienced some pretty nasty turbulence.
After it had calmed down, and we were back cutting through the silent night sky at around 39,000, the pilot came over the intercom with a pronouncement that would alter me forever.
“If you can, look out of the right side of the plane. Trust me, it’s worth the view”. I opened the shade, and what I saw took my breath away.
The very faint tinges of a sunrise, coming over the curvature of the earth. I could actually see, with my own eyes, how this wonderful, marvelous and unimaginable world that we live on was really just a ball in space.
Big, blue, beautiful and just hanging out in the orbit of our sun, that is making its own journey through this thing we call space, in a galaxy we barely understand, in a universe we have no significant comprehension of.
And there was I, riding in an aircraft in defiance of gravity, in air so thin it would kill me were I to be exposed to it.
And I felt my place in the universe. Small, smaller, and insignificant.
Except that I wasn’t.
To the people I had left behind in California, and to the people I would reunite with in England, I was significant. To the lives I would change in the future, to the children who I would be blessed to raise, to the friends who I had not yet met, and the people I had not yet helped, I was still significant.
And as I rode the waves in the air of that turning earth, I found a new level of awareness. The truth that all of us, whoever we are, and wherever we are at in life, are significant. We have value. As small as we are, as damaged and difficult as we can be, there is not a one without some value.
Today, I ask you to find your value. As you travel with me on this journey of intention, inspiration and imagination, I plead with you to find your place on this turning world.
On my bedroom wall are these words that I try to live by, and I invite you to make them yours also, if you feel it appropriate…
“I have come further than anyone ever thought possible, and my journey is far from over.”
May you find the truth of your travels, the joy in your journey, and the enlightenment in your experience.
May we together travel onwards, riding the wave of this turning earth.
And sample eternity.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings