Between Two Flickering Worlds
Between Two Flickering Worlds
Emma Wilkins
The stars were so bright that instead of looking where I was walking, I kept looking at them. Then I stopped walking—maybe even breathing—and stared.
I’m no expert on the constellations, but I was sure that if the sky usually contained a line of about a dozen stars, I would have seen it before. And then I noticed the line was moving.
I blinked. I exclaimed. I looked around for someone to tell, but it was before sunrise in the suburbs on a very icy morning; there were no fellow walkers in sight.
Later that morning I told my husband, who was as baffled as I was. The story was not one I planned to broadcast on social media; the fact I was out walking in the dark in Tasmania in late Autumn by choice was strange enough without the UFOs. But I did text a friend who works at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization:
“...If someone told you they saw a line of what looked like 10-15 stars but were presumably satellites travelling/drifting across the sky (in a roughly spaced line!!) while walking at 5.35am this morning, would you have an explanation? Asking for a friend ;)”
Within minutes I had my answer: “Probably Starlink. Low orbital internet satellites. They’re a nuisance for astronomy. It’s the only satellite system I know of that’s orbiting in close groups like that. They fit a whole bunch on each rocket... over time they should space out from each other, while staying in the same orbital plane.”
Google filled in the gaps: what I saw was a “satellite internet constellation” constructed by the Elon Musk company SpaceX. It wasn’t invaders from another planet or even spies from another country, but a billionaire’s space toys. No need to wonder about all the other possibilities, including my own sanity—mystery solved.
*
It seems fitting that my own small mystery in the physical world was solved online through immaterial means. It’s easy to think of the online world as one place and the real world as another; my mind as one thing and my body as another—to forget such things are intertwined. The internet is part of the world, our minds are part of our bodies, and whether our thoughts are posted to the masses or spoken in private, their source is the same. And yet, I am between two worlds.
I don’t expect death to transport me to another planet, but I do believe that one day this broken world—this fragile body, troubled mind—will be renewed. What I saw in that dawn sky wasn’t aliens, but there’s a sense in which I do believe in them—a sense in which I am one myself. The scriptures I’ve been reading since childhood liken believers to strangers, foreigners, aliens in this world. What’s more, the Bible explains that from the world's perspective, my beliefs are foolish; I am a fool.
*
I might be between two worlds, but I don’t want to be two people; to hide my beliefs in some spaces, to let them out in others. I don’t want to be one person in real life and another online, one in my mind and another when I speak, one in this social circle, another in that.
Doubt wants me to carve myself in pieces; show one side here, another there; to always play it safe. Faith says that my final judge will not be my friends, my family, or the crowd—I’m called to love, not please. Doubt says I should follow all those spinning satellites; there are no absolutes. But faith says there’s a truth older than time. The ancient constellations might be harder to discern in today’s sky, but they’re still there.
Technology helps mortals transcend limits of embodied interaction, time and space. Our bodies remain still while what we type takes flight. Yet, this boundlessness imposes limits too. It robs us of the richness of true togetherness, it flattens interactions, dulls imaginations and divides.
It’s one thing to assume a flat, faceless majority will be hostile if I speak about my faith; it’s another to assume people I know, and who know me, aren’t interested. I realize I’ve made assumptions about my friends’ assumptions. We’ve spoken face to face, walked side by side, discerned each others’ feelings without words. They’ve never asked me to keep anything from them. Why wouldn’t they be curious, intrigued? Open to another view—another world?
*
In The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, Timothy Keller says that it’s possible to be free from caring about what others think of us, or even what we think of ourselves. He examines how the great apostle Paul could earnestly profess to care very little about being judged by any “human” court; could call himself the “chief” of sinners, and yet declare, “I do not even judge myself.”
Paul is well aware of both his failures and his accomplishments, but “he does not connect them to himself and his identity”—or to his self-worth. It’s one thing for an intelligent and influential figure to keep their ego in check, it’s another thing altogether for them to stop thinking about it.
“True gospel-humility means I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself. In fact, I stop thinking about myself,” Keller says. This means criticism no longer devastates; not because pride and arrogance make a person unwilling or unable to hear it, but because hearing it, even accepting it, doesn’t jeopardize their self-esteem. Their worth is rooted firmly in God’s love.
It is a sobering truth and a wonderful relief. Sobering that a holy, perfect God is my true judge; a relief because this judge is just and merciful; He sacrificed His son to set me free.
*
I’m reminded of a night several summers past. I was so uncomfortably hot that instead of sleeping I lay texting—trying to entice a friend to join me at the beach. Eventually, she complied. I dressed, she picked me up. We parked beside the promenade and headed to the sea.
We expected the water to be warm, but we did not expect it to be glowing. The bioluminescence amidst the waves had us skipping, playing, shouting with delight. But it wasn’t until I put my goggles on and sunk below that I realized where the real show was.
Under the water’s surface, away from streetlights and passing cars, against quiet, silky blackness, there were no vague shimmers, only intense sparkles. Each flick of my fingers released a dancing spray of glitter. I shot fireworks from my fingertips and toes, I swam and spun then watched the sparkles radiate and fade. I was a painter, a magician, an astronaut, a captivated child.
Resurfacing, I gave my friend the goggles, thrilled that this was something I could share. Seconds passed. She resurfaced, gasping for air and bursting with excitement, marveling at the magic. We took turns after that, swimming underwater, painting, playing, popping up and swapping, exclaiming with amazement and delight.
Later, when we walked towards the shore, I saw some people in the shallows. I called to them and handed them my goggles, urging them to take a look below. I didn’t know them, and I didn’t care, I knew that what I offered was a sight they would remember all their lives. I didn’t hesitate, I wasn’t shy, I didn’t wonder what they’d think of me.
I wanted them to see this other world. Starstruck, I forgot my very self.
Emma Wilkins
Writer & Journalist
Emma is an Australian contributor who enjoys thinking and writing about faith, relationships, literature and life.
Photography by Isaak Alexandre Karslian