William Shatner: My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’

[ralfyman]

William Shatner: My Trip to Space Filled Me With Sadness

I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.

…

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Shatner shouldn’t have been saddened by seeing what appeared to him to be nothingness. I’m reminded here of the Catholic concept of the “dark night of the soul”, where God is present but the senses of the afflicted soul cannot perceive that presence.

I pray that Shatner, a Jew, will find Christ in the contemplation of this seeming void.