Heaven and Earth

Newton’s first law of motion: an object is either at rest or moves at a constant velocity, unless acted on by an external force.

There is no escaping this law. It is true on earth, and it is true in space.  George Clooney, in the movie Gravity, knows this, as he unhooks his tether with Sandra Bullock, to give her a chance to survive.  With no hope for himself,  he drifts off, above the beautiful, blue-green earth.  He implores her to survive, and we last hear him calling out, in astonished awe, at his view of the sunrise on the Ganges River.  He is the first man to go to heaven. . . still alive.

In the magical beauty of the earth’s orbit, in the great, pervasive mystery of space, Sandra Bulloch is alone, in terror.  Death could come so quickly, so indifferently, as it has for her companions.  Her anxiety is a storm.  Life and rescue are still possible, her destiny is all up to her.  She will have to save herself.  She grabs onto any hold she can.

All the while, the earth is just there, in all its splendor, the place where everything has happened, and where everyone has lived and died.  There are no signs, up there, of all the human trouble and misery, down there, just an aura of innocence and peace, as if humans never were.

This silent majesty is strangely comforting.  The earth and the stars are right there, and they have the answers.  A great. . . truth. . . is out there.  Lifeless space, the living earth, the mystery of time.  One senses that there is a knowing presence, filling the emptiness.  It is so close, and yet out of reach.  What, really, is this earth doing here?  What, really, is gravity?

This story has biology, too, a man, a woman, and a child. The man sacrifices himself for her, men do that, and she grieves, terribly, for her child, who has died down on earth, sometime ago.  Does she blame herself?  A mother would.  She has suffered love, a force we can’t see, a force that makes humans care more about others than they do about themselves.  It is an attractive force, but it’s not like gravity, it is not inversely proportional to distance.  Loved ones feel part of each other, across space and time.

In this unending, eternal present, why do humans suffer?  The past and the future concern them, and bother them. It is life that feels and suffers the hopes of time.

Like the first sea creature that was able to get on to land, eons ago, she gets back on to earth, to solid ground, back from death and heaven.

Existentialism: “the unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad, a free agent in a deterministic, disorienting, and seemingly meaningless universe.”