A New View of the Moon
A three-minute video, called “A New View of the Moon,” went viral on YouTube recently, even though it showed little of the image of the big round rock that shadows the earth some 238,855 miles away. (You can watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCrJ3NflOpE.)
Instead, it shows a couple of guys named Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh taking their sophisticated telescope to the streets of Los Angeles, asking people at random if they want to take a look at the moon.
The reaction most heard from people seeing an up-close image of the moon? “Oh, my God!”
Says the commentator, presumably one of the filmmakers: “It makes you realize that we’re all on a small, little planet and we all have the same reaction to the universe we live in. I think there’s something special about that, something unifying. It’s a great reminder that we should look up more often.”
An Anachronism
The phrase, “Oh, My God,” which has become “OMG!” on Facebook and other social media (Too hard to write out?), is so commonly used it’s become automatic, eliciting no actual thought. It’s a phrase that expresses surprise, delight, awe, or all three. Obviously, it has nothing to do with a person’s perspective on God. It’s an anachronism from the age of faith.
It reminds me of a story I once read about such phrases in Russia’s Soviet era. A strict anti-religious atheism was the official policy. Religious practice was outlawed and religious belief banned and often punished. After decades of official atheism few people practiced their faith and public or private references to God were non-existent.
Still, the common Russian phrases that had been used for centuries persisted. “Religious” phrases similar to “Oh, My God!” were still part of the Russian vocabulary. For me, it’s an example of how people cling to religious practices that have lost their meaning, how religion becomes a cultural appendage, having little to do with actual faith.
Those of us who practice a religion know all about the risk of mouthing prayers and conducting rituals that are rote and automatic. Jesus knew about this, too, according to Mathew’s gospel. “These people honor me with their lips,” he said about the religious leaders of his day, “but their hearts are far from me.”
No Reference to Religion
The “New Moon” film’s commentator makes no reference to religion but I like what he says about the observations of so many people regarding the unique view of the moon they see.
There is something special about people recognizing that we’re fellow travelers on this planet, and it is unifying. And, yes, we should look up more often, but isn’t that a bit trite? We should also look sideways to admire the beauty of nature and our fellow human beings. Most of us are so focused on “our own stuff” we give little attention to what isn’t in our immediate personal zones – our relationships, our jobs, our finances.
Many honest people who pray, I suspect, ask themselves, “Just where is this God I’m talking to?” A good question. Medieval paintings of Jesus, Mary or the saints always have them “looking up,” and it’s hard for us to shake the idea that God is “up there.” When referring to God, people often gesture upward or refer to “the man upstairs.”
There may be some confusion because of the word “heaven,” which is equivocal. It refers to “the place” where the Bible and many religious traditions have said people could “go” after death. But it also refers to the space somewhere vaguely above us, often expressed as “the heavens.”
Is Heaven a Place?
This confusion may also be reflected in the apparent clash between what we know from the Bible and what we know philosophically. The Bible – both the Hebrew bible and the Christian bible – has lots of references to heaven as a “place.” The Lord’s Prayer, for instance, addresses the Father “who art in heaven.”
But the Bible also describes God as spirit, and the souls of the dead as disembodied spirits, and by definition, spirits are outside time and space. Personally, I think of God as being everywhere, in me and around me and in and around the billions of other people on earth, and stretching from here to beyond the ends of the universe. As for heaven, I have to be content with not knowing much.
Growing up, I was taught to obey the Second Commandment – never to “take the Lord’s name in vain” – so “Oh, my God” doesn’t roll off my tongue. But I think it’s fine for people to use the term when commenting on something as awesome as a view of the moon up-close.
It would be better, of course, if people searching for God especially, think about the awesomeness of God when they mouth the words.
