Sep 1
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Today we read the story of the creation of the sun and earth.

    At the beginning of the big bang,
    everything that can be seen --
    everything that makes up the earth,
    or the sun, or the clouds,
    or the stars in the sky
    -- was compressed
    -- made to fit --
    into a space much smaller
    than the space taken now
    by a human hand;
    or even a finger;
    or the smallest shaving
    of a fingernail.

14 billion years ago,
January 1 on the Cosmic Calendar,
At the stroke of midnight
At the beginning of the new year--

    Everything within that small space was identical everywhere.
    There was nowhere any difference between light and dark,
    or between full and empty;
    but everything was full;
    and it was as if all was dark,
    because there was nowhere clear enough
    for light to shine through.

    And then the space expanded;
    and there became the difference
    between the full and the empty.
    This was the Big Bang.

15 minutes later on the Cosmic Calendar,
or 370 thousand years after the big bang:

    After the Big Bang began, space kept on expanding, getting bigger
    and bigger, so that there was more and more emptiness to surround
    all the things that would become the stars and the sun and the
    earth.

    It took fifteen minutes
    on the Cosmic Calendar,
    or 370 thousand years,
    before there was enough emptiness
    for light to shine
    through the universe.

    Then there was light,
    and the emptiness expanded more and more,
    and the empty spaces became like air bubbles
    in a watery foam, surrounded by thin layers
    of the things that would become the galaxies
    and the stars and the sun and the earth.

    As time went on and the empty voids grew bigger and bigger, the
    full parts between them grew smaller and smaller, so that all the
    things that would become galaxies came together toward each other,
    collecting themselves into great flocks called filaments.  As the
    filaments shrank smaller into themselves they began to form swirling
    clouds called galaxies where the things within would swirl together
    into spiraling clouds as well. So there were spiraling swirls and
    clouds within spiraling swirls and clouds.

Big Bang Tea Party
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