Above the Dome
written by: Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowksi
“And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”
The ancient people created their belief system based on what they could see with their eyes. My mother's side of the family was from small towns in North Dakota. North Dakota is flat, and most of the trees you see were planted in the early 1940's to serve as natural windbreaks. If you've been to rural North Dakota, you know that looking in the distance, you could swear you can see the earth's curvature. I believe the writer of Genesis saw the illusion of the earth's curvature and understood it to be in the shape of a dome. The dome was a way of explaining something beyond our understanding.
The dome separated the water from the sky. We have telescopes that help us see planets and vast solar systems. We have planes that fly to and beyond the limits of the dome. We have rocket ships that have landed on the moon and moved beyond the rings of Saturn. Yet, as brilliant as our technology, we are still grasping at mysteries beyond our understanding. Are there black holes that suck us into different parts far, far away from our solar system? Are there wormholes that shoot us through to other dimensions in time?
We are still not too dissimilar from the ancient writer who tried to grasp the skies beyond the dome. There remains so much we may never know about God's creation. Like the ancient writer, we must trust and continue to worship the Creator. I am not frustrated by my lack of understanding. The glory of the vast power of the universe is comforting in that God's vast creation is always more than we can understand. Now, that is a Creator worth affirming and a God worthy of our praise and worship! Amen!
(Originally printed on November 14, 2017)
