The Wonder of It All

As December heralds the season of Advent, Hanukkah, and Christmas, many pause to contemplate our universe and the role our Creator wishes us as physical and spiritual beings to play. New Year’s Day brings new resolve relative to our search for meaning and purpose. In a 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, George Washington wrote, “May the Father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way, everlastingly happy.”  Washington’s words frame a fitting resolution.

  Step outside on a cold winter’s night away from the glare of city lights and gaze upward. Marvel at the scattering of light from countless stars in a display of  splendid creation. Using advanced technology, astronomers have calculated that our Milky Way galaxy contains over 200 billion stars.

 We can only see so far into deep space so it is hard to know what is out there. With the vast Milky Way only one galaxy among many, scientists surmise that there are 100 to 200  billion galaxies in the universe, and each of those contain billions of stars and planets. Per a report noted in The Week magazine of 11/22/13, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley crunched four years of data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope and figured that of the 200 billion stars that make up the Milky Way galaxy, roughly one in five sun-like stars harbors an Earth-like planet. These bodies, 11 billion possibly inhabitable planets, are in the “Goldilocks zone,” neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water. If you contemplate the entire universe, there could be a myriad of planets similar to our spaceship Earth. Given overwhelming numbers, the possibility that we are the only intelligent life in a sea of galaxies and planets shrinks as a foregone conclusion.

 Man has long sought to understand what he beholds. Every person in every culture from the beginning has sought to comprehend the issues of life and one’s place in the scheme of things. The ancient Israelites believed that their God was the great Creator-God, the force responsible for our world and everything in it, an acceptance common to the three major Abrahamic religions. Biblical scholar Dianne Bergant observed that seeing a regularity inherent nature, our religious ancestors believed that “if they could discern how this order operated and then harmonize their lives with it, they would be more successful and at peace. The ability to perceive this order and to live in accord with it was known as ‘wisdom.’” (“The Wisdom Books,” Catholic Study Bible, New American Bible, pg. RG 231, Oxford University Press,1990).

 Wisdom Chapter 13 details man's search for understanding in nature while remaining ignorant of God as Creator: “All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan.”

 The color in fall trees. The majesty of soaring mountains in the west and Alaska. The pounding of surf on a barrier island. Birds soaring on high. The intricate design of a cat’s paw. The dedication of a faithful dog. The innocent smile of a grandchild. The miracle of a newborn. Gazing down on another continent from 38,000 feet. A sky full of countless stars viewed from a tiny ship in the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica. How can one not see the artisan?

 How can brilliant atheists such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens miss what is obvious to so many? In a fascinating new book, Darwin’s Doubt, paleontologist Stephen C. Meyer makes the case for intelligent design. In the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago many intricate forms of animal life suddenly appeared without any fossil record of ancestors. Even Charles Darwin speculated as to how this could be.  Wisdom answers: “For if they so far succeeded in knowledge that they could speculate about the world, how did they not more quickly find its Lord?” (Wisdom 13:9).

 In this spiritual season of renewal, may your search for meaning be fruitful!

Lewis Walker is President of Walker Capital Management LLC. and Walker Capital Advisory Services, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor (R.I.A.) Securities and certain advisory services offered through The Strategic Financial Alliance, Inc. (SFA).  Lewis Walker is a registered representative of SFA which is otherwise unaffiliated with the Walker Capital Companies. ▪ 3930 East Jones Bridge Road ▪ Suite 150 ▪ Peachtree Corners, GA 30092  ▪ 770-441-2603 ▪ lewisw@theinvestmentcoach.com