Sharing Our Powerlessness When the Sky Is Falling 3-8-13

Anderson, South Carolina

As an unrepentant science nerd growing up in the midst of alcoholism and addictions I found emotional safety by putting my head in the stars. Countless hours were given to finding refuge from chaos in my telescope catalogs, astronomy books, and building my own telescopes from scratch. On rare occasion I was granted use of a car and went to the wondrous heavenly realms contained within the Griffith Park Observatory shops where I worked on the optical trains for my telescopes.

I was long fascinated by a cosmic event that shook the world in 1908. Some sort of cosmic blast leveled 80 million trees covering a thousand square miles in Siberia near the Tunguska River; the detonation being heard a thousand miles distant. The explosion is thought to have been equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs and would have yielded a 5.0 deflection on the Richter scale. At one time it was thought a collision of a small amount of anti-matter might have been responsible for this event. Even more fascinating to me was the world’s indifference; it being more than a decade before any scientists even visited the impact site. I can’t image overcoming scientific curiosity for that long.

The frigid realms of Russia were again visited by a cosmic blast the morning after Valentine’s Day. Unlike the Tunguska event, this one was viewed in real time by hundreds of video cameras. At sunrise a million residents of the grim industrial city of Chelyabinsk, nicknamed Tankograd because it produced the famed Soviet T-34 tanks, saw their sky suddenly turn white hot. Within a second much of the window glass was blown out, subjecting thousands of people to a shower of glass projectiles. Interior warmth instantly dissipated in the sub-zero winter air. Many thought some sort of high tech warfare had commenced. Nearly 1,200 people were reported injured by the shock wave from the explosion, estimated to be as strong as 20 Hiroshima atomic bombs.

At the same time these reports were broadcast, another rock twenty times the size of the Chelyabinsk boulder was tracked making a near-earth miss; coming within the orbits of earth geostationary satellites.

As Chelyabinsk began its healing process, residents of San Francisco worried they might be next. A science institute in Northern California says it received numerous reports of a bright streak of light over the San Francisco Bay area the next night. Cuba apparently experienced a phenomenon similar to the meteorite detonating over Russia. Island media reported startled residents describing a bright light in the sky and a loud explosion shaking windows and walls. In a state TV newscast, residents of the central city of Rodas, near Cienfuegos, said the explosion was impressive.

An asteroid two hundred times the size of the one detonating over Russia three weeks ago is expected to pass near earth tomorrow. Four days ago another asteroid nearly the size of the infamous Russian rock passed near earth. Unsettling is the fact that both colossal rocks were only discover a few days ago. The boulder exploding over Russia was never seen in advance.

Reality and telescopes better than the ones I built show the earth to be entering into a region of space containing millions of very large rocks, at least a thousand of which could produce extinction-level events if they were to collide with the earth. Nearly a thousand have had their orbits mapped and appear unlikely to light up the night sky; a million more remain as unknowns.

A different form of reality comes from owning our powerlessness over cosmic billiard games where the stakes are epic. The sky literally may fall in catastrophic fashion and there will be nothing we can do about even if we have advance warning, yet there’s a silver lining to be found in such cosmic events.

Notable in Chelyabinsk, a grim city described as “a place where people always seem bitter with each other” the falling sky "was one of the rare times when people started to live together through one event." It brought a sense of cooperation in a troubled region; large numbers of volunteers came forward to repair damage caused by the cosmic shock wave. For many, it's provided a reason to roll up their sleeves and get to work repairing more than four thousand buildings in the city and region where windows were shattered, or to provide other services. 24,000 people, including volunteers, mobilized in the region to cover windows, gather warm clothes and food, and make other relief efforts.

In a local church, clergyman Sexton Sergei sought to derive a larger lesson. “Perhaps God was giving a kind of sign, so that people don't simply think about their own trifles on earth, but rather look to the heavens once in a while." When the sky is falling, perhaps we think a bit more about where our life journeys are taking us.

For those who have faced catastrophic events causing the sky to fall in on their lives; cancer, divorce, unemployment, alcoholism, and addictions can have every bit the emotional and physical impact of gargantuan rocks coming out of one’s sky at 50,000 miles per hour. Powerlessness is a hard teacher. Like asteroids, these things often show up with no advance warning; we find ourselves walking about dazed, often struggling to ever regain our footing.

As the citizens of Chelyabinsk discovered, coming together made a grim situation very different, one in which people could start to live together, perhaps for the first time. Those coming out of the grim realities of addiction also discover they can live together in the community of recovery. The Russians learned how the warmth of community and shared effort can thaw the harshest Siberian winter. Those in recovery have long learned the warmth coming from shared recovery can melt the ebony coldness of addiction. They understand community allows them to do things they would never be able to do alone. Powerlessness of the individual is eclipsed by the power and strength of the community.

Perhaps, there is something here to be learned by a nation of self-sufficient independent consumers who wonder why they feel so fragmented, isolated, lonely, and depressed. Perhaps we can learn a better way of living together without having to get in the head first by a big rock.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Blessings,

Craig C. Johnson