E=MC2.
Perhaps you have heard of this pithy little formula. We all have, of course, but since my left-hand cerebrum has shriveled into a tiny black raisin at this point in my career, I have only just understood what Einstein was describing.
He was describing a fat dude in a waterbed. According to Discovery Channel,
at least.
To put it in a less-wacky way, Einstein’s theory, among other things, elaborates on gravity — how mass affects the attraction of objects in space. Or, why an apple falls to the ground, for you fellow English majors out there.
Here’s the version I heard on Discovery Channel in more detail: if a big dude sat in the middle of a waterbed, the mattress would bend with his weight. He would sink into the middle of it. Can’t you see it? Then, when his 30-lb. toddler jumped up onto the bed with him, the kid would also sink into the middle of the bed, not because the toddler was also huge but because his father’s weight was pulling the mattress down around him and he had no choice but fall into the middle with dear old dad. The father, knowingly or not, has exerted a sort of gravitational force on his son.
Space is like the mattress. It bends, too.
This principle explains why huge stars have bigger gravitational forces than smaller planets. They weigh more, so they bend the waterbed mattress — er, space — at a steeper incline so the other smaller stuff around them can’t help but fall faster down the slope in their direction. This causes planets to orbit stars, and moons to orbit planets.
Anyway, that’s how I understand the Theory of Relativity. You scientists out there please kindly be prepared to look away in your embarrassment for me.
I’m saying all this because what Discovery Channel taught me next was about Black Holes, which are a marvel of — and function of — gravity. (If you are yawning and yearning to skip to Idle Chatter in the back, I will not know nor will I blame you.) Black Holes are mysterious, but scientists believe they are basically the densest of densest stars that are not only exerting huge gravitational force on objects around them, but go so far as to absorb the objects themselves. So if you were to encounter a Black Hole on your way to Target one day, you wouldn’t just start orbiting it like Jupiter orbits the sun, you’d be sucked into it, never to emerge again. Which is not really much of an analogy. Target IS the Black Hole of humanity, at least for those who have procreated within the year.
Here’s another thing you’re probably familiar with that has nothing whatsoever to do with science or waterbeds: a saying that goes, “He thinks the world revolves around him.” Or, “She thinks she’s the center of the universe.” I don’t have to explain what we mean when we use these phrases. We all know these people. But we also use celestial euphemisms to praise people, too — “You’re my world, baby” — and even Romeo called Juliet the “sun.”
When we set ourselves up — or someone else up — as the center of the universe, we delude ourselves into thinking everything else revolves around us (or them) in sort of a feathery musical theater number where we (or they) are Stars with a right to dictate how stuff should move in relation to us (or them). This way of thinking leads to diva-ism (or obsession), or worse, cruelty. But what we actually become when we set ourselves or someone else up as Stars in the galaxy of our own imagining is a Black Hole. We absorb, distort and destroy the things we value and want to hold onto the most by our own narcissism. If you’ve known anyone who has destroyed a marriage with infidelity, or smothered a child’s spirit with unrealistic expectations, you’ve seen the creation of a Black Hole, and you didn’t even need the Hubble to do it.
There’s only One person with the mettle to be the Star in the metaphysical universe, and it isn’t you or someone you know.
We all are, in fact, planets.
Ok, I realize at this point the analogies are spinning out of control, hurdling through space helter-skelter like a fiery asteroid. And Bruce Willis isn’t even here to nuke it for us. (Ok stop already! Can you tell the editor doesn’t have an editor?)
So let me try: Colossians 1:17 tells us that in Jesus, “all things hold together.” Jesus even describes himself as “the bright Morning Star” in Revelation 22:16, commandeering that moniker from the Devil, who fell from heaven because he was also more interested in being a Star than a planet.
Bottom line: Jesus is the center of the universe, the Star of the show, the biggest, brightest celestial marvel the cosmos will ever see. Can you feel the pull? His weight bears on our souls.
Unfortunately (and miraculously), we aren’t controlled by physics. Unlike real planets, we can choose to spin out into the void, away from Jesus, growing bigger and more bloated with ourselves to the point we implode and take the beauty in our lives with us.
So let yourself be drawn into the dance of Jesus’ gravitational orbit. He is, after all, much more than a dude in a waterbed.
See you on the flip side.
