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A friend is taking music lessons from a talented teacher. She’s in Japan, he’s in New York. That, by itself, is utterly astonishing to many of us older folks. She assigned him a piece of music which he thinks is too difficult for him. In encouragement she told him she wants him to relate to the music, not the individual notes. He’s focusing on trying to get the notes right. She’s telling him to get out of his own way and play the music.

We’ve all had moments when we did something exceedingly well without thinking about it. Perhaps, the intricate dinner just came together perfectly, perhaps the words just flowed, perhaps the ski run was great, perhaps, well, whatever it was, we didn’t, for once overthink the process and did it so smoothly and perfectly we astonished ourselves.

Remember the great advice, “Don’t believe everything you think”? That advice has come easier during the past year thanks to the Space Telescope. As the images have flowed in we’re more and more aware that we really don’t even qualify as a speck of dust in the vastness of the universe. We’re infinitesimally small, a tiny, blessed, blue dot lost in the infinity of space.

One of the things which we now know is, the cosmos is expanding at an increasing rate of speed. We’re flying outward ever faster. That would violate all rules if the physical universe, the galaxies, were all there is. Gravity is an attractive force, therefore, at the very least, our expansion should be slowing down, not speeding up if everything we’ve assumed about the Big Bang were correct. Something is causing it all to speed up, not slow down and certainly not beginning a reverse trip back toward coalescence again.

When people have asserted belief in a universe of particular dimensions we always want to ask, “And beyond that, what?” It certainly doesn’t seem logical that there’s an infinite wall somehow around all there is.

More and more, there’s speculation that there are multiple universes, that our universe is only one of many. Think of it, as far as even our new Space Telescope can see, we don’t even have a clue of universes beyond our own. It’s truly mind boggling.

If nothing else, it reminds us not to think too highly of ourselves, not to stress over the notes, just allow the music of eternity flow in and through us.

Absolutely nothing we think we know is etched in whatever the most permanent reality there is. There’s no reason for us to go to war to defend some human belief that may well be no more real than a mere wisp of unknowing.

Remember Walt Whitman’s line, “…dismiss whatever insults your soul…”. Get out of your own way. There is an ultimate reality we will never fully grasp in this life, something we will never capture in the poor net of mere words. Let the music flow through instead of stressing over the notes.