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Good morning. On a family outing to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich a couple of weeks ago, we decided to visit the planetarium. It was a great way to spend half an hour with a couple of active eleven-year-olds! The resident astronomer took us on a fascinating tour of the sky, showing what would be visible that night - cloud cover and light pollution permitting. It was all pretty impressive. But then he turned off the atmosphere, demonstrating what we would see if that wasn’t getting in the way. Instantly, the view that had been amazing enough as it was became scarcely credible. The sky was jam-packed with innumerable pinpricks of light. We all sat there, stunned.  We know about the sheer unimaginable vastness of the universe in theory, with its estimated 500 billion galaxies, each of them containing about 300 billion stars. But to see it like that was something else.

Being brought face to face with our ant-like insignificance in the scheme of things is an unnerving experience. But at least we’re not alone. Many centuries ago, the writer of Psalm 8 had the same experience. ‘When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? ‘Yet’ he goes on, ‘you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour.’

Lord God of the overwhelming immensity of all that is, all that has been and all that ever will be, as we reflect on the wonder of your creation, help us to see human beings more as you see them and to treat ourselves and to behave towards one another as people who really matter. Amen.