"the words that we utter reach through all space"

[zirconium]

I attended a memorial service for the extraordinary Elizabeth Papousek this morning. At the end of the service, Rev. Seavey said that opening the hymnal at random (a habit of Elizabeth's at worship committee meetings) had led her to these words of Maria Mitchell (a Unitarian as well as an astronomer):

Small as is our whole system compared with the infinitude of
creation,

Brief as is our life compared with the cycles of time,

We are so tethered to all by the beautiful dependencies of law,

That not only the sparrow’s fall is felt to the uttermost bound but the vibrations set in motion by the words that we utter reach through all space and the tremor is felt through all time.

After the reception, I stopped at the Green Hills library, where some Advent calendars from the collection of the Steele Family were on display, including one featuring planets and stars:





(I also saw three other church members at the library while I was there. My tribe indeed.)