Vast and spacious

i spent most of today in the american museum of natural history, up in new york city. this was the first of what i hope will be many museum pilgrimages (the other two of my big three are the met and moma). i was there for close to five hours, and i only explored a little corner of it--never made it anywhere close to the dinosaurs. my favorite part was the Hall of the Ocean, standing before dioramas of angler fish and tubeworms by deep sea vents, and giant kelp forests, and the sperm whale wrestling the giant squid, and i gasped like a little kid and my mouth hung open, and it all moved me powerfully (i'm quite serious here) to worship god in my heart--as the psalm says,

How many are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—€”
living things both large and small.

There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there...

May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works.

(similarly, it made me think a lot about conservation and global warming and stuff (i saw an inconvenient truth last week, which you probably oughta go see), and to pray for the preservation of the earth. that was all part of it.)

the Hall of Biodiversity was like that too, and the Hall of the Universe--galaxies colliding and comets swirling around the sun--so numinous, you know?

and then i came back and went to church, and i got all grumpy again. sigh.