The Symphony of the Universe

Imagine, if you will, our universe as the subject of a magnificent symphony, played by an orchestra of ten thousand instruments spread across a massive, curved stage, hundreds of feet across. At the center, all in white, the infinite God, the Creator of it all, conducting. Behind the stage a screen that spreads all the way from stage left to stage right and reaches up seemingly to the stars displays the visual wonders of the cosmos as the orchestra plays. The Conductor sweeps His right arm from side to side, then slowly raises both hands and all the instruments roar to a crescendo as the screen shows the collision of two galaxies. Purple, and gold, and blue clouds fill the screen as a million stars explode, and as a dozen tympani pound and throb, jets of energy, massive geysers of Gamma rays streak out 1000 light years from the collision. The Conductor closes His fists, and at once the instruments are silent and the screen goes empty. As he raises His left arm, cellos and trombones whine and growl rhythmically as on the screen we see a black hole, a dark iris in an oval sea of stars that circle clockwise around the dark center. Nearer the blackness, stars spin in an increasingly furious frenzy. The innermost stretch into semi circle streaks, then disappear, as if down a drain. Again, the Conductor closes His left hand into a fist, and instantly the orchestral sound changes to the bright chirps and tweets of piccolos and soprano clarinets and saxes. The percussionists tingle their triangles and rustle their chimes, and on the screen we see a solitary hydrogen atom, its simple core and its lone electron, like a gnat, whizzing around in circles.The view zooms in toward the nucleus, and the rest of the woodwinds blend in as we see the separate pieces, the proton and neutron. The orchestra takes a mischievous, cartoon like turn, the oboes and saxes honking discordantly, the brasses laying an iambic rhythm as we zoom inside the proton to the realm of the quarks, those specters, those phantoms, those shadows of matter that follow none of the rules the rest of creation must follow. We don't really see them, but we know they're there. The Conductor brings His arms to His chest, pauses, them flings them out to His sides, and instantly again, the music and the screen are transformed. Now all the instruments play together, a sustained C major chord. The drums play gentle rolls, the kettle drums a heart beat. On the screen the blue-green ball that is Earth comes into focus. It slowly rotates, and we recognize the continents and the oceans. As we zoom closer a man made satellite, a tin can with antennae and solar panels zips by. Closer still, and we see rivers, then cities, then skyscrapers. The C chord stops, and the violins alone play just a few bars of a bittersweet melody. The Conductor reaches toward the screen, His arms outstretched in front of Him, His palms up, as if to say “Ahhh, look there...” Then the palms close, the screen goes dark for just a second, and one lone violin weeps. Then ten thousand players are on their feet, their instruments angled toward the sky and blasting out a cacophonous finale as the screen becomes, again, a broad expanse of space, with clouds of galaxies, streaks of color, giant explosions and collisions in every direction. The Conductor waves both arms left to right, then back again. He points at instruments and coaxes still more out of them, and the screen grows more full. He sways with excitement, growing the sound, filling the sky. Dust becomes stars, and stars become dust. The finale will go on forever, just as it has. Forever.