By DONALD DeMARCO
Our intimacy with the cosmos is expressed in many ways. The month is based on the lunar cycle, the year on the Earth’s revolution around the sun, and the day transpires between sunrise and sunset. Sunshine, moonbeams, and stardust are words that have been interwoven into many a romantic song. We can be moonstruck, our smile can radiate sunshine, and we can aspire to the stars. We are co-tenants in the cosmos.
It is irresistible that celebrities are called “stars.” After all, they are remote from ordinary people, are luminous, and are imperishable. Nonetheless, stars do perish. In fact, even massive stars can collapse at the end of their lives to form a black hole, a region from which no escape is possible. And so do the lives of celebrities come to an end, restoring to human consciousness the ineradicable fact that we are all mortal and share a common fate.
Cosmologist Stephen Hawking left this life at the age of 76. From the world of politics, we mourn the death of George Herbert Walker Bush, America’s 41st president, and his wife of 73 years, Barbara, who passed away on April 17 of that same year. We also saw the passing of presidential aspirant and war hero, John McCain. In the world of music, Francis Lai, Aretha Franklin, Vic Damone, and Roy Clark will no longer be a living presence. The silver screen has lost Burt Reynolds, Dorothy Malone, Tab Hunter, John Gavin, Barbara Harris, and Margot Kidder. And TV has lost John Mahoney, Nanette Fabray, Ken Berry, Jerry Van Dyke, and Marty Allen. The Rev. Billy Graham will no longer preach the Gospel message. Neil Simon will write no more plays, Bernardo Bertolucci will direct no more movies, and Stan Lee will create no more comic-book heroes. We have lost a great deal.
Stars burn out and will be replaced by new stars. Media heroes wander off into the sunset. Life goes on, even after death. It is the law of the cosmos and a lesson learned with some resistance.
According to Genesis, on the first day of creation, God said, “Let there be light.” And “God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.” If stars appeared early in God’s creation, perhaps it was to symbolize His own imperishability. But “light” was merely a stage. And what a stage it is! The sun, which is but a medium size star, makes up 99.9 percent of the solar system’s mass. Nonetheless, it is man, not light, that is made in His image. We should not mistake the stage for the drama. Stars may remind us of our immortality, but it is what they awaken in us that is the seed of everlasting life.
What man has in dignity far surpasses what stars have in magnitude. In the final analysis, it is quality, not quantity that counts. Stars cannot comprehend themselves. There is a second meaning to the word “light.” It refers to that power of illumination that resides in the mind of man by which, as Aristotle says, he “can know all things.” The universe would not be complete without a being, such as man, who could comprehend and enjoy the majesty and beauty of the cosmos. The stars are “light,” but man is “enlightened,” Stars perish. Man, in the final analysis, prevails.
This is the great cosmic paradox that puzzles physicists who see the universe as hastening, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, to eventual cosmic death. It is unprepossessing Homo sapiens that outlasts the stars. The two exceedingly different factors that fascinated the philosopher Immanuel Kant were the “starry skies above” and “the moral law within.” How could such disparate realities be in some way reside in the same person? Only the Creator could bring such seemingly antithetic factors into harmony with each other. Stars inspire us, and yet, in their own mysterious way, help us to understand that it is the Word of God and the soul of man that endure forever.
We hitch our wagon to a star. G. K. Chesterton said it more beautifully: “If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?” Our world of temporary light intimates a higher world of everlasting light. We human beings are paradoxical creatures composed of starlight and earth dust. We should never think, however, that the dust component is dominant. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has reminded us, “Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul” (A Psalm of Life).
We may no longer view stars, as did the ancients, as imperishable. Science has dispelled that charming bit of romanticism. But we do look upon them as something which reminds us that we have a transcendent destiny. Stars, to the secular mind, symbolize success. When the great opera diva Geraldine Farrar once interrupted Arturo Toscanini during one of his famous outbursts, she insisted that he should not treat her so rudely since she is a “star.” The maestro’s tart reply brought her back to earth, “Only the sky has stars.” Toscanini was right, though we still cling to the notion that being a star grants us very special privileges.
The sun has set on a host of celebrities. In a certain sense, 2018 was just like any other year, convincing us once again of the brevity of life and the inevitability of death. We thank these celebrities for sharing their gifts with us and we harbor the hope that their momentary stardom was but a prelude to a life on which no sun will never set.
(Dr. Donald T. DeMarco is a professor emeritus of St. Jerome’s University and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College. He is a regular contributor for St. Austin’s Review. His latest two books, Why I Am Pro-life and Not Politically Correct and How to Navigate Through Life are posted on amazon.com.)
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