On the short walk to my studio at night, I’ll often look up to see the stars. It’s not some deep soul-searching thing – it doesn’t start that way, anyway – it’s usually an inconsequential glimpse to see ‘what’s up,’ up there.

Casual glimpses may become a soul-searching thing. It did one night.

The night was clear. The oppressive humidity had gone from the air, and the atmosphere was as transparent as glass. The stars were radiant; pure and glistening, the way jewelers speak of their finest diamonds as being of the “first water.” That’s a jeweler’s way of saying the diamonds are as pure and clear as a dew drop. Seeing stars on such nights as these, always stirs this recurring thought: the stars may have died billions of years ago, but their light continues on as if what flame they once generated was destined to continue through the universe and live forever. Light has a destiny. We have a destiny.

I like the thought.

Do you suppose that this is the way it is to be for us, too? The light, that life force that sets us into motion illumines the small circumference that our lives inscribe. Its beams continue beyond that circle into eternity even after we’ve ceased to generate light.

I reckon that’s why the universe is so inconceivably large – so that all the energy ever generated can continue on, unimpeded, and have a space to be accommodated as it continues on its journey. Fanciful to be sure and hardly scientific, but I believe it works something like that.

That our life force, once aglow, continues shining through the books whose authors are long gone; or in other ancient writings and scrolls, in architecture and the various artistic creations that we have unearthed from antiquity. But I mean something even beyond that.

It’s common to hear and read about light and it’s peculiar, almost magical properties, this stuff of the beginning of the universe. This was the essence of the big bang that produced all the building blocks of the created universe. For sure, in the beginning was light and it illuminated the whole universe. There was also a lot of noise, a big bang, actually.

I’ve read several theories about how light behaves and about its place in the created order, but little about sound and its role in creation. Our beginnings are called the big bang. I recall no commentary on just what the sound of it may have been like.

As I write, I’m listening to Louis Armstrong singing ‘It’s a wonderful world.’ It’s broadcasting from my Echo. To hear music, I need only to make a request out loud: “Alexa” I say, “play Satchmo.”

I imagine it’s like God saying, let there be music, and suddenly there it is.

Alexa’s pretty responsive. However, when I ask her for selections from Beethoven she comes up with the most dreadful music and I can find no reason, acoustically, for the confusion. I imagine she’s not always playing with all her chips. But when she’s on, she’s on.

Discounting sound’s import may have begun long ago when the big bang happened. There was no atmosphere and no way sound could be transmitted. If there was any sound (there had to have been) only God heard it. Strangely, he didn’t think enough of it to comment. He was definitely partial to light. When God finished the work of creation, it was “everything that he saw that he had made and behold it was very good.” It was clear that he liked what he saw. Whatever he heard, it wasn’t anything he thought was worth mentioning.

Sound, like light is a phenomenon of vibration, subatomic waves. Isn’t it possible that every time we open our mouths or play an instrument, cry out in joy or in wail in suffering, these vibrations, like light, find their way into the universe? Wouldn’t they continue on the immense journey to a destination we can only imagine? Traditionally, we think of prayer that way, but with this caveat; that our voices are supposed to wind up in God’s hearing. There is a lot of controversy about that very issue, particularly about voices not being heard, such as victims of gross injustice so common today.

In fact, echoes from the beginning of time do exist today in audible although very humble forms – static heard over some television screens and other electronic transmissions.

Madeleine L’Engle, reflecting on faith and art, tells this remarkable story.

In one of the early space explorations, the astronauts in orbit reported hearing some “old time” nostalgic music over their speakers. They enjoyed it, but wondered where it came from. They assumed NASA had aired it for their listening pleasure. The astronauts radioed the people at NASA thanking them. NASA responded saying they knew nothing about it. Their curiosity aroused, NASA began some preliminary investigations to try to identify what the astronauts may have heard. Their search included identifying any broadcasting stations that may have aired the kind of music the astronauts reported hearing. They found none. They went back in time to see if some earlier broadcasts may have made their way into space. Their research revealed that the particular program broadcasting the music had been aired sometime in the later nineteen thirties.

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him,” St. Paul once wrote as he stood awed at the majesty of creation. He was stunned by the sheer wonder of what’s sublime in the mundane, the glory in the ordinary. He expresses this awe and wonder beautifully in the context of his Christian faith. I think his vision applies well outside this context and has been expressed from the beginning of human existence, typically in music and art. It finds its expression in unexpected ways from the most unlikely people.

The stogy Anglican bishop of Birmingham, England was asked once what he thought was the most magnificent hymn ever written.

“Louis Armstrong singing, ‘What a Wonderful World’,” he replied in a heartbeat.

In the lyrics, Armstrong sings about what he sees, like, “trees of green, red roses too… skies of blue and clouds of white.” He also sings about what he hears – the sounds of common life – like people extending a greeting, “how do you do” or whispering, “I love you.”

This universe shimmers with light; but it also vibrates with sound, sounds like the liquid gravel voice of the one and only ‘Satchmo.’ He’s long gone, but his voice continues to be heard. The author of the music has expired, but the tones that emanated from him live on to bring us joy and send light into our lives.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

Should someone greet me saying, “Rest in peace.” I’d be offended and think they are hoping I’ll drop dead. And yet it’s one of the loveliest sentiments imaginable.

Too bad we invoke it only for the dead.

In today’s social climate, our emotions are determined largely by the daily assaults to our values, ideals and to common decency. I suppose it makes sense then that we might have to wait until we’re dead to rest in peace.

With some awareness, I think we can do better.

In The Talbot Spy on August 2nd, Maria Grant wrote a column titled “Weary of Outrage but Not Ready to Give Up.” I read it with interest.

She is outraged by the mindless enormities foisted on us by the present administration. She lists them. The list includes the denial of climate change, the migration crisis, continued sexual abuse, congressional inaction against Russian interference in our voting, and the hypocrisy of the religious right. I share her outrage.

“If you think about this too much, it can destroy you.” She warns us. “We can lose hope. What is one to do?”

To retain our own humanity and sustain hope, Ms. Grant suggests two things: that we engage in actions I would describe as serving others and nurture our hope by occasionally disengaging “from society’s incessant noise and seek beauty in nature, music and literature.” I think she’s spot on. Service and contemplation – food for the soul – is the proven formula for healing a troubled soul and mending a broken world.

Contemplation is not an exotic practice. It’s a common-sense phenomenon. It’s an uptown version of the old folk saying, “Just take a deep breath and count to ten.”

I’d also liken contemplation to how I deal with a computer. Whenever it misbehaves and begins driving me crazy by committing fatal errors, I get angry. I feel overwhelmed. I’m unsure what’s wrong or what to do. Finally, I unplug it. I wait a minute of two. Then I plug it in again. Things seem to sort themselves out.

Say, for instance, your mind is turbulent and bubbling after hearing another egregious tweet from the White House. Your mind fills with disturbing thoughts that seem overwhelming, even hopeless. I suggest letting this turbulent brew boil for a bit. Then shut off the heat. That means sit with the turbulence, but don’t obsess about it. Obsessing effectively turn up the heat. Just let it be. You’ll notice how the brew will eventually cool. The fatty and fetid stuff that makes the mix so disagreeable in the mind will slowly rise to the top and congeal. Scrape it off. The brew is now transparent. Now you can see just where and to what you want to give your attention. Spoon that part out.

Being outraged by what is outrageous is good for starters; it’s proper, directs our attention and facilitates giving the matter some serious thought. Being outraged does poorly, however, when that’s all that motivates our responses. Dealing with life’s inequities requires a cool head. Resting in peace is the proper attitude to cultivate. But in the Trump era, just how is the challenge.

Buddhism addresses this matter of maintaining mental equanimity during suffering and turmoil more pointedly than most other religious bodies. Peace is its core value. It teaches ways to rest in peace, to ride gently with adversity, not later, but right now.

A tenet of Buddha’s teachings was especially instructive for me: “Victory breeds hatred; the defeated live in pain. The peaceful give up victory and defeat.” The peaceful learn how to free themselves from the frantic cycle of winning and losing, of having to be right, not wrong. They get out of the race. It’s easier, then, to act justly and wisely.

The dead-end of the win/lose game came home to me once when I was watching clips of a Trump rally. The camera panned the crowd. I watched jubilant faces, some with hands raised in the kind of salute that chilled me. I’d see red MAGA hats everywhere and some with tee shirts that read “TRUMP” while others read, “JESUS IS MY SAVIOR – TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT.”

My reaction was instinctive and virulent. It frightened me. It was reminiscent of the Bund rallies of the Third Reich. I got angry. I felt appalled. My mind raced and I felt agitated. In my mind, I found myself saying to this crowd: “You are all mad. Can’t you see that you’ve bought the Brooklyn Bridge from a con man? You’ve been had; we’ve all been had. He cares nothing for you, the country (or Jesus Christ, for that matter) except as any of them may be useful to him to gain another term. Can’t you see that, are you blind?” Then I’d begin building my case to convince this crowd how right I was.

Did this change anything? Hardly. Did I feel better for it? No, not a whit.

I was confronted instead with my own combative nature. My need to win, to be right, to defeat these people by my righteous wrath provoked it. The combative nature of the rally itself suckered me down into my own belligerent nature and I went wildly into the fray mentally ready to take my opponents to the mat. As the Buddhists would say of my emotional response: it was not skillful. St. Paul would say that I was “thinking of myself more highly than I ought.”

What then is skillful? How do I direct what I feel and guide how I think and act when confronted with egregious violations of my values and ideals? How can I be effective when I have only limited energy? It all comes back to first practicing contemplation – putting things in perspective and then seeking ways to serve others.

For right now, that remains for me the most enduring formula I know for promoting inner peace and being a sane voice in a mad world. When taking this road, I take small steps and, whatever else happens, something good eventually comes of it.

A Zen tale illustrates the point.

A farmer’s plow horse wanders off. He can’t find the horse. His neighbors lament his misfortune and the hardship it will bring on him. “We’ll, see,” the farmer says to them. A few days later the plow horse returns, this time with a mare. His neighbors say how lucky he is to have another horse to plow his fields and the promise of even more horses. “We’ll see” says the farmer. One day the farmer’s son decides to ride the mare. She’s feisty and pitches him off. The boy falls and breaks his leg. “How dreadful,” his neighbors say to the farmer and how hard it will be for you to have no help in the fields. “We’ll see,” he answers.

One day soldiers arrive at his farm. They are looking for Army recruits. Seeing the boy’s broken leg, they then ride off without conscripting him.

Our fortunes will come and go like waves. Best to ride them as they rise and fall. No one wave lasts that long.

RIP.