Why I Am Catholic: The Wonders of Space (Music for Mondays)

-Feast of St. Luke, the Evangelist

Friday evening, the sky was open and my girl and I headed over to the university in our town to attend at the stars. For her science class, see, extra credit is usable and this was one way to make vantage of that opportunity. The sky was clear, the dark air was frosty and the moonlight was waxing just past half.

So my girl and I jumped in the car and headed to college. Sort of care a father - daughter date night under the stars. The university folks had three telescopes set up for us and we got to see the Pillars Nebula (seen here from the Hubble telescope), and up closely and personal looks at the moon. We too were hardened to viewing Jupiter and could distinctly see her and iv of her moons. And lastly, they slewed the range over to let us looking at a binary star system. We could distinctly see those two little suns twinkling at us. No house of Tatooine though (but perhaps it was there). Anyway, that is how the paper for this weeks Music for Mondays segment came about. Space, the last frontier. The paper to Star Trek. How's this for a mood setter? But this, The Known Universe, is still better. One of the research assistants and I were talking around the new planet that was "found" recently that could perhaps be supportive of life. You may have seen the tale about this planet the sizing of Jupiter 20 light-years away where, "this planet doesn't take years and nights. Wherever you are on this planet, the sun is in the like place all the time." But I'll take to sleep! The more we look, the more we learn. And the more we learn, the more it seems we already exist on the Goldilocks planet, where everything is "but right." And as it happens, everything has to be exactly right, as God intended it. Next up, David Bowie's Space Oddity. This is from a 1970 television appearance, and earlier the Ziggy Stardust era. Confession time: I've ever loved this call and I sang it to every one of my children when they were babies. Really. I even sang it to the neighbor's boys when I would meet with the kids out on the swing set. You know, for astronaut training purposes. The Police, Walking on the Moon. Remember this from 1979, on the leading edge of the early 80's? The album title? Regatta de Blanc. This from a last concert in 1983. Well, now that the moonshine is on my mind, how about something apocalyptic and classic too? Creedence Clearwater Revival and Bad Moon Rising should do nicely. I live I played this already late in my "To Anne Rice, with Love" segment, but this is a must for any space segment. Elton John's Rocket Man. Sing along while you love this classic footage.Neil Young fleeing Mother Earth? Something similar that, in After the Goldrush, with silver spaceships and such. What better visuals for a space segment than black holes? And what better medicine for that matter than Pink Floyd? This from the instrumental version of Glow on You Crazy Diamond. Space and Pink Floyd go together like peas and carrots, wouldn't you hold? One of These Days, is the tune. And this montage of a shot from Stanley Kubrick's 2001, A Space Odyssey fits well too. It was enjoyable spending time with my daughter, admiring Our Lord's handiwork. Afterwards, we went and had some frozen yogurt at a shop adjacent to the campus. I blinked a little when I considered that in six short years, my 6th grader may be doing this again with an actual date. Gulp!

See ya'll next week!