Cosmos

The Story of the Universe integrates science and religion and gives us a new life-affirming epic story to tell our children and ourselves. Since the birth of the world's great religions, around 2000 years ago, science has enabled us to understand our cosmic origins and the nature of our universe in ways unimaginable before. The majesty and magnificence of our universe have inspired us to embrace these principles:

1. Learn the epic of evolution, the story of the universe, as revealed to us by science
2. Embrace science as an essential form of revelation
3. Remember, the whole, the earth, the universe, is primary, sacred
4. Celebrate evolution as an expression of the cosmos
5. Explore the role of humanity in this story
6. Live our daily lives in harmony with the cosmos.

In Cosmos, a First Church group formed within the Worship and Programs Ministry Team, we study and celebrate the 13.7 billion year story of our universe’s birth and evolution, as we now know it from science. We do so that we might participate in its unfolding by entering into mutually enhancing relationships with all the other beings that constitute the earth community, the earth as a whole and even the entire cosmos.

Modern science has revealed that the universe is a developing being with a birth and a story of the dramatic transformations it has gone through to arrive at our moment. We are participating in its evolution. The 13.7 billion year epic of evolution is The Great Story, which includes all other stories. Our universe was born in a stunning singularity approximately 13.7 billion years ago, an event we call the fireball. It then gave birth to atoms, which created galaxies, which created stars, some of which explode as supernovas, creating the atoms of our sun and earth and our bodies. Our earth, once molten lava, has grown into all the splendor we now know, including ourselves.

Participants in Cosmos are part of this astounding story and we celebrate it with stunning pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, joyful and heart-felt songs, poetry, meditations and story telling. We tell the story now revealed to us in great detail by modern physics, astronomy, astrophysics and the earth sciences of geology and ecology. We also come together and talk about what this all means to us.

Humankind has a role to play in the cosmos. We are the universe experiencing itself and evolving through this new mode of conscious self-awareness. Our role is to be the way the cosmos appreciates itself with new-found depth. We are how the universe houses its magnificence and how its great powers now unfurl in conscious self-awareness.

Through the process of discovering our magnificent origins and the stunning powers with which we are participating, we discover how to treasure and enhance the life of our planet. We learn how to, as Michael Dowd says, “ensure a just, healthy, beautiful and sustainably life giving world for future generations of all species.” We will learn how to contribute to the health of the earth community, of which we are a part, so that the whole earth can evolve into the astounding future that awaits us.
Cosmos offers the community a celebration and a salon on the 2nd Friday of every month.

To be added to the Cosmos mailing list, so you you’ll be notified of our upcoming events and resources, send an email to: cosmonautssubscribe@cosmiccelebration.com.  For further information please contact Keith Mesecher at 619-263-2165 or email him at mesecher@cox.net.