So I Lift My Eyes ...

With 2010 underway and the holidays now in the rear view mirror, I have been puzzling over how and what to post to kick off the new year. The "return to routine" has been anything but, it seems. Schedules are completely out of whack, and the demands of work are filled with unexpected uncertainty. To some degree, I'm almost childishly rebelling against this return to routine, and as such am having difficulty finding some equilibrium.

It so happens that while fighting this mood yesterday, I saw a brand new "photo" captured by WISE - the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. Launched into orbit December 14th, the WISE is designed to:

[S]can the entire sky in infrared light with a sensitivity hundreds of times greater than ever before, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images.

The mission will uncover objects never seen before, including the coolest stars, the universe's most luminous galaxies and some of the darkest near-Earth asteroids and comets.

Some additional information, plus a video of the launch can be found here.

However, it was the image below that captured my attention, the first released by NASA since activating WISE. Located in the constellation Carina, it shows the brilliance of Creation that lies just beyond the visible light spectrum. It reminds me that there is so much out there that we simply don't have eyes yet to see - but nevertheless a reality so real that if we are able to just glimpse its truth, we can find once again the hope and wonder of a new beginning in an ageless and everlasting eternity. Am I stretching the hyperbole here? Perhaps. But that does nothing to diminish the conviction I have that one day, I will see this with my own "eyes" - and things far more breathtaking.

So despite my lack of inner equilibrium, I will lift my eyes to the heavens ... and fix my mind on things I can't quite see, but know to be true.