Goofy News About Pluto

Pluto is no longer a planet.  Despite being round, having three moons, and circling the sun, the tiny sphere fails to meet the new definition concocted by the International Astronomical Union.  (I didn’t know astronomers had a union.  If they go on strike, does Saturn disappear or something?)  Anyway, this bunch of pocket protector Paladins have considerably upped the tarrif on who gets into the club.  Now, in addition to orbiting the sun and being round, an object must “clear the neighborhood around its orbit.”  While batting .660 against that standard, Pluto’s elliptical orbit can’t keep Neptune out of its hood, resulting in a demotion.  Now they can’t think what to call the thing.  Someone has suggested “dwarf planet,” but that will offend the Vertically Challenged Community.  Perhaps the PC would be “little planet.”  The scientists, being scientists, suggested “small solar system bodies,” which has absolutely no snap to it.  My favorite so far is “planette.”

All of this is causing quite an uproar.  NASA thinks demoting Pluto is a Goofy, Mickey Mouse thing to do.  Teachers worry that their textbooks have gone instantly out of date.  (Execpt here in Texas, where high school science books predate the newly-non-planet’s discovery in 1930).  And at least Pluto is a has-been.  Under the new guidelines such celestial objects as Ceres and Xena become never-was’s. 

Indeed, you could say the controversy is world-wide.  Well, as wide as this world, anyway.  On Pluto itself, the news doesn’t seem to have had much impact.  Instead, the little fellow just keeps humming along out there, blissfully oblivious to its ranking in the lastest NCAA poll.  See, Pluto orbits the Sun, not the Earth.  Her relationship to the center of her universe hasn’t changed.  Earth, and earthlings, are not the focal point around which she turns.  In fact, she probably just looks right by us, too blinded by the blazing light of her heavenly benchmark even to notice all our terrestial uproar.  Our position in her sky, like our opinion of her status, keeps changing.  The sun, by contrast, stands still.

“The heavens declare the glory of God,” says Psalm 119.1.  We could all learn a lot from Pluto.  If we keep our gaze fixed on  the Sun of Righteousness, risen with healing in his wings, we won’t be quite so concerned with our read-out in the latest opinion polls.  Solomon rightly despaired of life “under the sun,” a fact which should remnid us to set our sights a little bit higher.  My title, my popularity, my stroke may change from one day to the next, but I won’t worry if I’m circling the same Savior today whom I circled the day before.

Near the end of C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan the Lion confronts the wicked queen about the status of Edmund, a traitor whom the former has chosen to forgive and the latter still seeks to condemn.  When the White Witch mentions a traitor, “Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund.  But Edmund had got past thinking about hmiself.  He just went on looking at Aslan.”  Later, as Lion and Queen argue, “Edmund was on the other side of Aslan, looking all the time at Aslan’s face.  He felt a choking feeling and wondered if he ought to say something; but a moment later he felt that he was not expected to do anything except to wait, and do what he was told.”

That’s the answer to all our angst about accomplishment and success and stacking up with the big boys:  keep looking at Aslan.  If we can achieve an unbroken concentration on Christ, we won’t worry about the latest headlines.  Even if our role is a small one, and we find ourselves isolated in frigid, starless darkness, silently spinning around six million empty miles from the middle of things, we will do our obscure work in perfect peace, not because of who (or what) we are, but because of where we’re focused.  “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” - Isaiah 26.3.

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