Image: Earth from space. (NASA)
Humanity’s artificial calendar has declared a new year. A couple of thousand years and change have passed since the birth of Jesus Christ. A very tiny moment in the grand scheme of things. Celebrated by many people with feasts, fights, flowers, and fireworks, and mutual exchanges of best wishes for a “happy new year.” All followed by a return to doing exactly what we did in the year 2024, and all the preceding years in which humanity has done good and bad in equal measure. At once advancing and destroying.
My insignificance in God’s infinite universe is what has been on my mind since New Year’s Day. Where do I fit in? Why am I here? What does God expect of me? What can I do in the tiny time left before I fly away and vanish like 110 billion others who have already lived and left Mother Earth?
The Universe, as we know it, has been around for 13.8 billion years. Certainly not more than 14 billion years. Some very clever scientists are sure about this. Ours is probably one of several universes that exist today. It is also probably one of a series of consecutive universes that have come and gone for an infinite period. The last Big Bang was probably not the first, but one of many that God has made since the unfathomable beginning.
The visible Universe, which is assumed to be only 3 percent of our Universe, and is rapidly expanding, has neighbourhoods called galaxies, up to two trillion of them, each with billions of stars, and each star with its own planets. There are an estimated ten septillion (1024) stars in the visible Universe. Can we be the only technological species in our Milky Way, let alone the infinite Universe? Methinks not, for I refuse to pretend to know even a tiny fraction of God’s power and design of His magnificent creation.
God created the Milky Way galaxy, the neighbourhood in which our solar system lives, about 13.61 billion years ago. This neighbourhood has 100-400 billion stars (suns), each with its own planets. We are latecomers, for we know that God created the oldest planet in our small neighbourhood about 13 billion years ago. He created Mother Earth only 4.54 billion years ago. Blessed are they who have the humility to acknowledge that we may not be alone in our Galaxy, and certainly in our amazing, still expanding Universe.
Having created Mother Earth, God waited to create our earliest known ancestors, with the collective name Early Hominins. They show up about 7 (seven) million years ago. That is not even a half-wink of an eye relative to “the beginning.” And it is only recently that God split us from our shared heritage with chimpanzees. Our type, well, humans, have been around for only 3 (three) million years, evidently placed in Africa by our Creator. You have read about our ancestors – Homo rudolfensis, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo naledi, Homo antecessor, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis, and the finest of all, Homo floresiensis. This last one sounds like Florence, the most beautiful European feminine name, a fact about which we shall not entertain debate. Those who know, know.
Homo sapiens, the modern humans, are truly new arrivals. We have been on this planet for not more than 200,000 years. Our journey began in Africa 200,000 years ago, with the first mass migration to other continents 100,000 years ago, and a second mass migration 60,000 years ago. No visas required and no threats of deportations recorded.
Our distant ancestors were not keen record keepers. It is Homo sapiens, the modern human, that has a mere 5,000 years of recorded history, the credit for the first records belonging to Egyptians and Sumerians. It is rather sobering, for that is a very short time indeed. But that history is worth reading and learning from. It is a humbling story of humanity’s goodness and great works, constantly messed up by our folly, with mortal beings carrying on as though we have an indefinite visa to stay on Mother Earth. One of our current endeavours is to destroy this beautiful little planet’s ecosystems, its ozone layer, its glorious vistas, and ultimately ourselves.
Folks who are destined to live for seventy years or, if by reason of strength, eighty years but full of labour and sorrow, carry on as though our years will not soon be gone, and we fly away. Our folly is a cyclical dance to an old script that dates to earliest recorded history, with vivid examples from our recent past all over Africa and beyond.
Wise are they who are humbled by the evanescent nature of our individual lives, as James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us in Chapter 4:14 of his New Testament Letter: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” The older I get, the more real this verse becomes. And the more at peace and accepting I am of my insignificance and mortality.
The same is true of our families, our countries, and the world itself. Rulers and their courtiers are just a passing wind, though many close their eyes and ears to this truth. This tiny blue dot that we call Earth is not here forever either. It will be swallowed by the sun when the latter dies in about 7.5 billion years. Humans and other living things will be long gone before that, perhaps 1.3 billion years from now. Some think it may be sooner than that, perhaps in 500 million years.
Meanwhile, our Milky Way is thought to be on a collision course with our neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, which was born 10 billion years ago. The two galaxies are engaged in a dance of mutual attraction, akin to Ekizino of Abakiga, Orunyege-Ntogoro of Abanyoro and Abatooro, Nankasa of Abaganda, and Larakaraka of the Acholi. Stand atop Mount Kikuba at night, just across the river from my home in Mparo, Kigyezi, or atop your favourite hill in your neck of the woods and listen to the heavens carefully. That celestial soundscape that eludes humanity because of our preoccupation with noisy technology, is the soundtrack to the great dance that has brought the two galaxies very close. Their intergalactic dance is a very fast one, with Andromeda moving towards our Milky Way at a speed of 110 kilometres per second.
The two dancers’ galactic halos, the envelopes of gas, dust and stray stars in which each is shrouded, are already touching. But no need to panic. No need to run. The two galaxies are still at least 1.3 million light years apart. (A light year is the distance light travels in one year, which is 9.461 trillion kilometers.) The two dancing partners, currently about 12.3 quadrillion kilometres apart, are expected to collide and complete their kwanjula (engagement party) in 4.5 billion years and consummate their marriage as a new elliptical-shaped galaxy called Milkomeda 7 (seven) billion years from now.
Now, this is not a sure deal. Some scientists give the much-heralded inter-galactic collision a fifty percent chance of occurring. Happily, Andromeda and the Milky Way know what they are up to. Theirs is not a fatal attraction. It is a mutual attraction that, if consummated, is expected to result into a very long and happy marriage. Our Earth, which will be a deserted ruin that was once inhabited by humanity, will be safely hanging out with her mother Sun. The latter will be in its final preparations to swallow this tiny blue dot, a desolate address whose ancient inhabitants will have long been called home. Those who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour while they lived, will be in Heaven with creator of this awesome universe, or universes.
These are very humbling things. These unimaginable numbers and visible cosmic events represent just a tiny bit of knowledge that God has allowed us, to remind us of the utter insignificance of our mortal lives, and the vanity of our worldly attachments over which we foolishly fight to death.
This is a new year with no change in the human condition, except by God’s grace. One appreciates the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Philippians Chapter 3 afresh. Paul teaches us to count everything as rubbish in order that we may gain Christ and be found in Him and forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, we press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ. May our minds and lives be fully dedicated to this purpose, and may we stand firm in the Lord, seeking peace and contentment in Him. For everything else is rubbish.
© Muniini K. Mulera