The Longest Journey
Many Unitarian Universalists have gone on long and meaningful journeys, but none has gone quite as far as Clyde Tombaugh.
Clyde was born 1906, and ever since he was little he wanted to be an astronomer. A hailstorm that destroyed the family’s crop meant that there was no money to send him to college, but he built telescopes and lenses on his own.
The astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto here shown with his homemade 9-inch telescope. Photo circa 1930, Public Domain
People at the famous Lowell Observatory were so impressed with his drawings of Jupiter and Mars that they offered him a job.
While he was working at the Lowell Observatory Clyde Tombaugh explored the sky using photographs taken through a telescope, and through a special procedure discovered that what he suspected was true—there was another planet out beyond Neptune.
Although that planet, Pluto, was later reclassified as a dwarf planet, it was an important discovery about our solar system.
What about the longest journey? Well, Clyde Tombaugh died in 1997, at the age of 90. He was cremated, and some of his ashes went onto the New Horizons spacecraft that made it all the way to Pluto, and recently sent us back stunning pictures of the dwarf planet at the edge of our solar system.
Truly an amazing journey!
In Search of Abundance: Margaret Fuller
Margaret Fuller, born in 1810, believed that women should lead full and abundant lives, even though most people at the time thought that being a wife and a mother was quite enough for women to do.
But Margaret was not only extremely smart, she liked to be in conversation with other people, exploring ideas and thinking about how the world could be better. She was good friends with famous intellectuals of the time, like Emerson and Thoreau. But she especially liked to make a place for women to have conversations that would be a chance for “self-expression and independent thinking.” Many women who participated in these conversations went on to be leaders in the movement for women’s equality.
In 1846, the quest for more abundant life took Margaret Fuller to Europe, where she worked as a foreign correspondent, sending newspaper articles about events in Europe back to the United States.
While in Italy, Margaret became involved in the Italian revolution, and fell in love with another revolutionary, a younger man who was an Italian noble. The two of them had a son, and eventually decided to come back to the US. Sadly, their ship sank in a storm within sight of shore, and they never made it back. But while she lived, Margaret Fuller certainly lived abundantly!
To learn more, visit margaretfuller.org.
“A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body” -Margaret Fuller
A Forgiveness Ritual
Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs wrote a ritual of forgiveness for Unitarian Universalists, based on the Jewish Yom Kippur service. In this ritual, everyone repeats: “I forgive myself and I forgive you. We begin again in love.”
When someone hurts us, or we hurt others, the goal is not only that the person who was hurt forgives, we also need to forgive ourselves, and to start over in love. For those times when someone hurts you, or you hurt someone else, you might want to keep this in your pocket: “I forgive myself and I forgive you. We begin again in love.”
Apologies and Forgiveness
Rev. Lynn Ungar shares a story about offering the right kind of apology, one that asks real forgiveness.
Adin Ballou: Peace and Forgiveness
This month, as we think about forgiveness, we honor Universalist minister Adin Ballou (not to be confused with his earlier Universalist ancestor Hosea Ballou).
Adin Ballou came to believe that his religion called him to practice peace in all things, following the message of Jesus, who said that if someone slaps your cheek, that rather than hitting back it is better to offer your other cheek to be slapped.
Adin founded a community called Hopedale, which was based on these principles of radical peace and non-violence.
One day a man came to Hopedale, hungry and homeless. They offered him food and a place to stay the night. Later that night two young girls heard noises downstairs and went to investigate. They saw feet sticking out from the couch, and a bag full of dishes and candlesticks!
They called their parents down, and quickly determined that the feet belonged to the man they had fed and sheltered. The parents called in their community leader, Adin Ballou, who helped the man out from under the couch. The man explained that he was desperate, with no food or job, and he figured that if he was caught stealing he would be sent to jail, where at least he would be able to eat. Instead of sending the man to jail, Adin not only forgave the man, he even invited the him to join their community, and to make a home with them!
“Stars,” by Namoli Brennet
“Stars,” by Namoli Brennet
Lyrics:
Maybe we’re just one of a million tiny galaxies
Hurtling on towards some unrevealed destiny
Maybe we’re somebody’s unfinished symphony
Maybe we’re the defenders of the indefensible
Just trying to make sense of the incomprehensible
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Stars
Maybe we’re the victims of reincarnation
Maybe we’re the phantoms of manifestation
Maybe we’re just here to fix our mistakes again
Maybe we’re planets like Venus and Saturn
Surrounded by gases and protons and atoms
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Only stars
Maybe this world is just thinner than it seems
Maybe we’re all partners in the same lucid dream, yeah
Well maybe we’re vapors, and maybe we’re just steam
Maybe we’re creatures of habit and malice
That pale in the light of aurora borealis
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Only stars
Only stars
in the dark
just a
spark
Maybe we’re just lucky and blest to bear witness
to the flashing of this meteor, the tale of this comet
Maybe we’re cursed, and maybe we’re fortunate
Maybe we just go on our milky white way
Maybe we get to stay
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Stars
From the album Chrysanthemum, available here for download.
Part of the Great Story
“The Future Is Calling Us to Greatness,” a children’s story told by Connie Barlow at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, New Jersey, October 2013.
The Stargazer Who Discovered a Comet
From “The Stargazer Who Discovered a Comet” in The UU Kids Book by Anne Fields and Charlene Brotman (Biddeford, Maine: Brotman-Marshfield, 1989); used with permission. “Afterward” from Rooftop Astronomer: A Story about Maria Mitchell by Stephanie Sammarti
NOTE: The name, Maria, is pronounced “ma-RYE-ah.”
Maria always remembered the day she helped her father time an eclipse of the sun. She used the chronometer to count down to the exact second that the moon began to block out the sun. Her father needed to send the timing report to his astronomer friends at the big Harvard University observatory, where they were collecting eclipse information from all over.
“There will be another eclipse like this in 54 years,” said father.
“I’m twelve now, I’ll be 66 then!” exclaimed Maria. How could astronomers know so far ahead what would happen in the sky? How amazing that the stars and planets spun around in such order!
“I want to study the stars, always!” decided Maria one day. “I want to be an astronomer!”
“Father, can only men be astronomers?” she asked.
Father thought for a moment, while Maria watched his face anxiously. He knew that no matter how smart a girl was, she could not get into any college in the United States to study astronomy. Only boys were allowed to go to college in those days.
Finally he said, “There are no women astronomers in America. There are only a few in the entire world, but I do think it’s possible, Maria. I will teach thee all I know about astronomy. Cousin Walter has scientific books he might let thee read. Thee will need to study mathematics. That is as important to astronomy as the telescope. Yes, I do think it is possible thee could be an astronomer.”
“Oh, I will study, father, I will!” cried Maria joyfully, hugging her father.
True to her word, Maria spent long hours studying geometry and trigonometry in a tiny room at the foot of the attic stairs . . .
Maria still spent most evenings studying the sky with the telescope and keeping careful records on the stars. One night she saw a fuzzy spot through the telescope that she had never seen before. Quickly she checked the charts to see if a star was supposed to be in that place in the sky. No star was ever there. Could it be a new comet?
“Father, come up and look quick!” she shouted. Her father dashed up the attic stairs to the roof and peered carefully through the telescope.
“Thee’s discovered a comet above the North Star!” he exclaimed. “We must write immediately to the Harvard Observatory and tell them! A comet is named for the person who discovers it first but the discovery doesn’t count unless it is reported to an observatory.”
![By H. Dassell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.questformeaning.org/wp3/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Maria_Mitchell.jpg)
Maria Mitchell, by H. Dassell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Finally one day a package arrived for Maria from the King of Denmark. It was the gold medal! Now Maria was famous. She was the first woman in the world to have a comet named after her!
Women all over America were so proud of Maria that they collected money for a new, larger telescope for her. How excited she was! Now she could learn so much more about the stars and planets!
Maria’s life changed in 1865 when a wealthy man named Matthew Vassar had the courage to start a college for women — Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
People called Matthew Vassar an old fool. They said girls didn’t need a college education, they just needed to know how to sew and do housework and maybe play the piano a little. College would ruin them for doing housework.
There were ministers who thundered, “It’s against the will of God for girls to go to college! It will break up families and destroy the country!”
In spite of such talk, Matthew Vassar wanted Maria to come and teach astronomy! She could have an observatory with the third largest telescope on the continent.
“Father, how can I do this?” said Maria softly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “I’ve never even been to college myself!” She was also thinking, “If I’m not any good at it, then people will say, “This proves that women have no business teaching in colleges!”
“Thee can do it, and do it well,” said her father. “Thee should have no fears.”
He was right. Maria’s students loved her. The other professors just expected the students to sit and listen to them talk, but Maria taught her students to question everything and experiment, and to think for themselves.
Afterward
In 1986 another young woman discovered a comet. Working at Mount Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California, Christine Wilson had equipment and techniques at her disposal undreamed of in Maria’s time. At the start of her career, she had a knowledge of astronomy surpassing all that Maria learned in a lifetime of study.
But Christine Wilson’s discovery, while exciting and well publicized, did not catapult her into sudden fame as Maria’s had. New comets are not headline news. Thanks to pioneers like Maria, neither are women astronomers. Women now occupy important positions in the scientific community. Side by side with their male colleagues, they fight disease, predict the weather, design computers, and continue to discover comets. Maria Mitchell would be pleased.
From Session 2 of the Toolbox of Faith Curriculum, part of the Tapestry of Faith Curriculum offerings from the UUA. Find the complete curriculum here.
