ethoughts weekly- Issue 144

Jan 14, 2007

Life as Dark Matter

Did you know most of the universe is unseen? We could also say, what we can’t see is real. It’s called Dark Matter, and it makes up 90% of the matter of galaxies. Seen matter, like stars, gases, asteroids, comets, planets, and galaxies make up just one sixth of the whole universe. Dark Matter makes up the rest.

Often we encounter people who only believe what they can see. My Faith precludes this, because faith, at is essence, is defined as, believing in what I cannot see. Still, I have to admit, sometimes, I instinctively place more weight on the tangible, and seen things of my life. I may better appreciate the more easily-measurable things. The invisible things can bewilder or frustrate me, that is, when I’m not busy ignoring them. Busy ignoring is kind of a actively-passive thing to do, right?

Dark Matter in the universe doesn’t emit any light. It is thoroughly unseen. So, how then, do we know it’s really there? If you've already known about Dark Matter, have you ever thought about this?

We perceive this unseen matter by calculating the movement of seen objects moved by the gravity of the unseen Dark Matter. Recently, astronomers at Yale used 1,000 hours of Hubble Telescope data to make the first 3 Dimensional map of Dark Matter. Dark Matter is not spread evenly. It doesn’t fill in the gaps, between the seen “stuff” of the universal. It has its own shape. Amazing as it is, this new map, this break through in science, only shows a view of two square degrees out of 40,000 square degrees of universe.

The gravity of Dark Matter slightly bends the light seen coming from stars and galaxies. It bends it like light passing through a lens. The invisible matter is actually distributed in both clumps, and bridges called filaments. Dark Matter looks a lot like an invisible web.

So, for us, what’s the matter? What are the unseen things that affect the seen things in our life? Lately, for me, the Dark Matter of my life has been the in-between-times, the waiting. The seemingly empty time has an effect, or pull on the remaining time.

People have compared God to the wind, in the same ways scientists understand Dark Matter. We can’t see wind. We can only it its effects. Is wind real? Certainly. We perceive the Spirit of God, who is unseen, in the beauty, goodness, and gifts around us.

And beyond that, what matters? Dark Matter isn’t bad. It is called Dark, only because it is unseen. And so are many things we experience in our everyday world. Many things are unseen. In a way, they seem to be not there, but they have a pull on everything else. Things like our motivations, our emotional mechanisms, our past experiences, our attitudes and other things, play out in our tangible actions and words. Maybe we should get better at mapping our unseen matters, to know best what really matters.

Lisa DeLay

©2006