Memorize the planets

When I was a student in grade school, there were only nine planets. Kids in school memorized the names of our neighboring planets with fun mnemonics. For example, “My Very Education Mother Just Served Us Noodles” the first letters help us remember: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Our solar system was organized and manageable.

Fast forward a couple of decades and the Hubble telescope starts sending to Earth images of previously unseen galaxies for beyond our imagination. Middle School Science textbooks now inform students that there are billions of suns. No wait, there are billions of galaxies and trillions of billions of suns. Each galaxy can have billions of suns.

I tried explaining to my Middle School students how vast the universe is. They were not impressed, they refused to believe me, and asked how I knew this to be true. I got so much push back that I had to find sources to back up my claim. The students could not fathom billions of galaxies. Who can? When considering the vastness of the galaxies one can feel insignificant. Earth is a mere grain of sand barely seen on the map of the Universe.

My husband reminded me of the Bible passage that describes God counting the number of hairs on our head. She also knows when a sparrow falls to the ground. Look it up, Matthew 10: 29 - 31. The smallest of details are important to the same Creator that created trillions of magnificent suns. We are both magnificently insignificant and significantly magnificent - a sacred juxtaposition.

Walt Whitman writes that one blade of grass can blow your mind. Well, he didn’t write that exactly but it’s close. “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”

Take it or leave it #5: Memorize the planets.