In the spring of 1977 astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan worked on a particularly interesting project. He assisted NASA in compiling a series of audio recordings to be placed aboard the Voyager I and Voyager II spacecrafts. The recordings were produced in the form of golden phonograph records which had an estimated life of 1 billion years. It was hoped that in a far distant day, the records might be discovered and heard by some other forms of life in some other habitable worlds.
As author David Grayson has perceptively noted, “We are all of us calling and calling across the incalculable gulfs which separate us.” And so, apparently, we are – even calling across gulfs of outer space.
Do you know what sounds were sent out across the incalculable gulf which separates earth from other worlds? The golden records aboard Voyager I and II included greetings in 59 human languages and one whale language; a 12-minute sound essay including a kiss, a baby’s cry and an EEG record of the meditations of a young woman in love; and 90 minutes of the earth’s greatest recorded music including a Navajo night chant, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, Blind Willie Johnson and Chuck Berry’s “Johnnie B. Goode.”
Presumably Sagan and the NASA scientists compiled that collection as the most intriguing and most significant of earth’s sounds, attempting to capture something of what we humans find most thrilling and awe-inspiring, what we care most about and treasure most deeply. And maybe one day, beings on a far distant planet will hear those earth sounds, understanding and appreciating what matters to us, and a great gulf will have been crossed.
Earth is but a tiny speck in a vast universe, surrounded by gulfs of space on every side, but aren’t we human beings subjected to more than interplanetary gulfs? At times it seems that we are at the edge of seemingly unbridgeable gulfs of many sorts – personal, political, cultural, economic, religious – that seem to be widening day by day, as misunderstanding escalates to mistrust, hatred and even violence. Is there any hope for bridging the gulfs that separate us?
The Apostle Paul once attempted to teach a struggling community in Philippi that their faith was capable of taking them across the gulfs that divided them. Faith was a bridge of real power toward the promise and the joy available in life. Paul’s letter to the people of Philippi concluded with these words: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things … and the God of peace will be with you.”
Paul’s letter was a sort of golden record, and while it hasn’t yet lasted the 1 billion years that the Voyager recordings are intended to last, its 2,000-year record is still impressive. It links the best we humans are capable of conceiving – what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and praiseworthy – with the life of faith. It claims that focusing on those things will heal our hearts and hold our world together. That’s a message worth preserving. It’s a message worth sharing across every gulf.
