By: Jim Taylor
The
centre of the universe
Occasionally I drive by a big
billboard that proclaims, in huge letters, “Life revolves around you.”
And I think Copernicus must be
turning over in his grave.
Copernicus was, of course, the
Dutch astronomer whose precise observations of the motions of stars in the
night sky led him to the conclusion that the earth orbits around the sun, not
the sun around the earth.
Today, that’s commonplace
knowledge.
Except in
advertising, apparently.
Before Copernicus, it was
simply taken for granted that the earth was the centre of the universe, the
fixed point, the immoveable object. (They also assumed it was flat.)
In scientific terms, we had to
go from a “geocentric” concept, to a “heliocentric” one.
Since then, we’ve learned that
time and space are curved and interdependent. There is
no centre. Everything swirls around everything else.
Yet each of us continue to “strut and fret our hour upon the stage” – to
quote Shakespeare – as if we were the most important point in the universe.
Emotionally, we still dwell in
the 1500s.
Self-centred
Indeed,
if advertising accurately reflects our attitudes, then we haven’t even achieved
a “geocentric” concept yet – we’re still stuck in “me-ocentric.”
This little piggy went “Meee, meee, meee!”
all the way home.
“Me-ocentrics”
seem to proliferate faster than staphylococcus bacteria. Car and boat owners
believe they have an inalienable right to assault other people’s eardrums.
Smokers demand the right to inhale carcinogens, and to spend other people’s tax
dollars on treatment. Vultures sell sub-prime mortgages to dreamers who can’t
afford them, and then expect governments to bail out their crashing companies.
Arsonists set
Why not? Doesn’t the universe
revolve around their needs, their wants, their
ambitions?
Somehow – and I wish I knew how
– we need to develop a sense of humility again. Not a hand-wringing Uriah-Heepish self-abasement, but a proper recognition of our
place in a collective reality. As individuals, we exist in the quality of our
relationships with others – other people, other creatures, other kinds of
life….
Welfare of the whole
If we paid attention to almost anything beyond ourselves –
physics, religion, psychology, economics – the message should be clear. We are
all parts of a larger whole. The parts benefit only when the whole benefits.
Me-ocentrism,
on the other hand, turns us into cancer cells. We gain a short-term benefit as
we harm the larger body.
Social cancers will only be
cured when we value the welfare of the larger whole – family, society, or
planet – as highly as we value our own.
That doesn’t mean my family, my
profession, my country, right or wrong. Social groups can also forget that they
are part of a larger whole. They do not exist for themselves either.
None of us is the centre. We’re
all in this together.
Copernicus died almost 600
years ago. Isn’t it about time we applied his insights to our living?
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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study
groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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