The Darkest Day

 

The California Academy of Sciences, with its aquarium and African Hall and other exhibits, was a favorite place to visit with my children. Just seven blocks from our house and a perfect outing on rainy days. But when it closed in 2005 and re-opened in 2008 with a $40 per visit price tag, I stopped going. Until yesterday.

 

In the third straight day of rain with the grandkids going stir crazy in our house, we bit the bullet and decided to go. The white alligator was still there (though the two-headed snake was gone) and the taxidermied lions and tigers and such, but otherwise, a lot had changed. The rainforest walk, with live screaming macaws and fluttering butterflies, was impressive and as I read about the exquisite eco-system where each bug, bird, plant and animal has its appointed role in sustaining the greater organism of the forest, I was reminded yet again of the nature’s divine plan. And while sitting in the planetarium as we went from a full ceiling view of Golden Gate Park and telescoped out to the farthest reachest of the Universe, I was again reminded of how infinitesimally small we are and how it is a miracle beyond our comprehension that amidst trillions of celestial bodies, our tiny Earth is the only one we know of that is made to sustain life. Extraordinary doesn’t begin to describe it.

 

And yet in the midst of this fragile gift, we squander it, contaminate it, poison it, pollute it. We destroy the delicate balance of the rainforest to graze cattle for McDonald’s, we hurl bombs at each other because we have different names for divine presence, we sit passively by while companies get rich selling assault rifles and our own, precious, innocent children are randomly murdered in schools while the politicians send their “thoughts and prayers” but refuse to regulate guns. If we ever stopped a moment to think about this tiny, tiny planet amidst the vast reaches of uninhabitable space, to consider how the tiniest bug is part of a living chain that brings food to our table and breathable air to our lungs, we would fall to our knees in shame, and then again, in proper gratitude.

 

But we don’t. We wake up and repeat the same old mistakes and choose to get upset that dashing through the snow on a one-horse open sleigh is racist and the clown cars crashing into each other in Congress is all we can expect from our governing bodies. Shall I go on?

 

Any reader of this Blog knows I lean heavily toward faith in humanity and our inherent goodness. But not always. Sometimes the whole shit-show comes crashing down on my head and I wonder, “Why bother to imagine we can change? Let’s just give the real estate over to the cockroaches right now and be done with it.”

 

It is the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year, so here is my own darkness I’ve kept at bay. To turn to the light, all I can suggest is to lie down sometime and minus the $40 price tag, look up at the stars and consider. Look down at the bugs and consider. Listen to the call of the birds and look at the flutter of the butterflies and consider. We have to do better.