God and the Universe
What’s been going on for all this time?
Human beings are naturally egocentric and a bit self-absorbed. After all, we spend our days interacting with the world around us and we define the world through these daily interactions, with us as the center of attention. Of course things happen to other people, but we experience their responses remotely or second-hand, not as direct give and take between the world and our inner self. It’s understandable that we see ourselves as the center of action and meaning, and how this carries over into religion. But the reality is, Homo sapiens are latecomers to the party, and we may overrate our importance in the grand scheme of things. Given the age of the universe and our late appearance on the stage of life, there are questions we should consider. We tend to view the God-to-universe connection as solely a relationship between God and humankind. But what was he doing for the 13.8 billion years before we arrived?
I realize large numbers like 13.8 billion are hard to relate to and thus become a bit abstract. I felt it might be helpful to scale the history of the universe into a single day, starting at midnight with the big bang and ending 24 hours later with the present day. Within our scaled timeline, the earth forms during the late afternoon at 4:10 p.m., like an awkward teenager who spent most of the day sleeping. Soon…
