Sometimes it’s instructive to step away from reality into semi-reality and allow our imaginations to fill in the pieces. This is often how stories aid in digging out deeper truths - think of Jesus’ use of parables in doing this. So here, I will present a little story and invite the fertile imaginations of my readers to finish it. I’d be interested in hearing how each of you writes the ending!
In this story, everything about the earth is normal except for one small detail. The water balance of the atmosphere is such that it is always cloudy all over the earth. No one has ever seen the stars. The sun is just a blurry red ball that arcs across the day sky and the full moon barely makes a glow on the surrounding vapors. It’s like living in Beijing on a day when the PM2.5 index is hitting 300.
Things proceed quite normally in this slightly abnormal world until one day, Seiko, an unusually adventurous man, climbs the icy mountain on the outskirt of the province. He climbs and climbs, up through the encircling fog, barely able to see his way forward. But his determination to get to the top of this mountain remains unabated as he pushes onward, ignoring the perils surrounding him. Suddenly, beyond all expectations, he breaks through the cloud cover and emerges into a scene where the dark of night is aglow with the sparkling glitter of the stars! Never has anyone viewed this panorama of the heavens. The peak of the mountain lies just beyond him and he clamors to its icy top and pitches his tent. For a month he remains there on that mountain peak, cataloging the movement of the sun and the phases of the moon as they play across the newly discovered vastness of the heavens.
As his meager provisions run out, he is forced to forsake his isolated observation post and slide his way down the slopes of the mountain and rejoin his fellow earthlings. But he is a changed man. The experience has presented him with a brand new reality of the world in which he lives. It is a reality he must somehow share with his fellowmen. It is a reality you and I are comfortable with. But in this brave man’s world, this new knowledge will cause a traumatic stir.
And here is where I must leave the reader; at the edge of the intriguing precipice of watching new knowledge crash in upon this slightly abnormal world. Here is where I am asking you to pick up the story and tell what happened upon his return. There are a lot of areas to explore as we watch this entry of new knowledge impacting earth's inhabitant's cherished worldviews. How will it influence the social and political structures? Will technology be able to leverage this knowledge to benefit humankind? And most interestingly, how will it affect the religious environment of this world? What might the inhabitants have worshiped during the ages when no one had ever seen the heavens? We are so used to seeing how every religion on earth references the heavens, the moon, the stars, and the sun, as the region where their deities dwell. Where did the “deities” of this earth dwell prior to the discovery of the heavens? The ocean depths? The bottom of caves?
And whatever happened to Seiko? Was he hailed as the world’s new purveyor of truth or was he killed as a martyr for skewering the established paradigms? Was he a unifying or a dividing influence in the world? What predisposed some inhabitants to listen to him and some to hate him? Did he share the same fate as Jesus? Write a paragraph, an essay or an epic! Make a movie of Seiko’s life work! Use it as a chance to explore how people accept new information into their carefully sculpted worldviews. Have fun!
