Enchanted Stardust

This image provided by NASA, released Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, taken by the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope, shows stars bursting to life in the chaotic Carina Nebula. (NASA photo / September 9, 2009)

In my estimation there is nothing more awe-inspiring, wonder-invoking than the images provided by the Hubble Space Telescope: "Out of the stars in their flight, out of the dust of eternity have we come...sunlight and stardust mingled in time and space..." (Robert Terry Weston, c. 1960.)

Long ago, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker (c. 1840) intuited that we are "enchanted stardust."

The origin and evolution of our 13.5 billion year old universe is a great ponderable, a wellspring of Natural Religion and infinite source of religious experience. The images of the Hubble Space Telescope are primary resources of a Religion of Realities.