Stationary Revolutions.

I am sitting still in a room. A cup of coffee sits to my left without the slightest hint of a ripple within the mug. The chair in my house on the corner of the block in my neighborhood that rest in the outer skirts of halls, which lies in the northern part of Knoxville, which is positioned in the northeastern part of Tennessee, which is located in the southeastern region of the United States,which is in the northwestern hemisphere of the planet Earth that rotates on its axis at over a thousand miles an hour, which altogether is circling the sun at 67,000 miles an hour is not moving. It seems ignorant, albeit true, to think that if it were possible that a person could sit motionless above the atmosphere of the earth and look down through a telescope at me that I would be spinning like a top at its fastest point. Nevertheless, I sit here motionless in my unmoving chair next to my rippleless coffee pandering about all these things which seem indubitably imaginary, but are most certainly true.

I look up at the stars and pretend I can count them. I believe if I count the stars I can estimate how many there are out there above us. I can count 25 stars above my house before I forget where I began counting, so I know that there are at least a hundred stars above Tennessee, bringing me to believe that there are an estimated 5,000 stars above the planet earth. You know that is wrong, but would you be more apt to believe that there are an estimated 100 thousand million stars in our galaxy alone, and there are millions upon millions of galaxies beyond the milky way? This fact is incredibly too much for me to fathom. I can believe there are a vast number of stars when viewing them from my back porch, but my natural human myopia will not let me go beyond the ones in viewing distance, and certainly not beyond the galaxy that I am sitting still yet spinning in.

I believe the earth spins because I see the leaves change to autumn colors and I feel Jack Frost’s cold arms embrace me. And although I cannot possibly fathom it, I know that there are millions of galaxies beyond ours and that the planet we call home is a mere spec of dirt floating around in a vast Universe. I cannot completely fathom a creator and preserver of all things. But I bask in His glory all of my day and shout praises to His name throughout the night; I find comfort in His sovereign hand and fear Him who ordains all that comes to pass. May it never be that faith becomes believing only in what our minds can penetrate, for that is not faith at all.