Piece of Metal, A Quick Follow-up Thought

One of my favorite people in the world to listen to is Krista Tippet.  She has a radio show on public radio called Being.

On this week’s show, she interviews two astronomers who work out of the Vatican Observatory and talks with them about the stars, about science, about their faith.   One of them is named Guy Consolmagno.  In light of my recent post, Piece of Metal, I was completely struck by this introduction of the show in which Krista Tippet describes some of what this man has struggled with while studying the stars.

“Guy Consolmagno considered abandoning his scientific career at one point because he could not justify studying the stars when people were dying of hunger. He joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Kenya where he was assigned to teach astronomy at the University of Nairobi.

There, every time he cranked up a car-battery-powered telescope, entire villages would turn out in thrall to what he could show them about the night sky. He came to believe that the urge to look up at the stars and wonder where we come from and how we fit in is as essential to our humanity as our need for food.”

What a great image!  Entire villages coming out to star-gaze!  The human need for wonder and beyond-subsistence existence is always stunning to me.

And I think we musicians are not so far from this astronomer – enabling those around us to be “star-gazers” of the aural world…