Beyond Gravity


WARNING: THIS BLOG REVEALS KEY PLOT DETAILS OF GRAVITY (2013)

'I get it, it's nice up here. You could just shut down all the systems, turn down all the lights, just close your eyes and tune out everyone. There's nobody up here that can hurt you. It's safe.' Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) in Gravity (2013)

I have always been drawn to space (even though it's a party with no atmosphere) and that's one of the reasons why Gravity was among my favourite films of 2013. The movie is at one level a silly sci-fi thriller with an excellent 3-D gimmick (it's the first instance of 3-D really enhancing rather than detracting from the viewing experience that I have seen). But there's something else going on as well. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is an astronaut who has gone through great loss and trauma in life and in the course of the film there are moments when she values the complete isolation that space offers. There's no air, it's minus 273 degrees outside and she might be killed by flying space debris at any moment but at least no one is going to bother her. This is a woman who really needs some time out from life. No doubt we all feel like that sometimes.

Part of the appeal of space movies is that they take us to a place that isn't here, a realm of infinite variety and mystery, incredible worlds of colours far more exotic than grey Crewe on a wet Saturday afternoon.

In a service at Chester last week, we were talking about how the mystery of infinite space fit with various religious traditions and I realised that throughout my life I have drawn great comfort and hope from the mystery of outer space, partly because it seems so much bigger, deeper and richer than anything that can be captured in religious language. To use traditional Christian ideas, the wonder of space is bigger, more powerful, more helpful and meaningful to me than concepts of heaven and hell. The origins of life began with a big bang, an enormous force of light and energy of which all of us are, in a way, a part.  Collectively, we've all been enjoying a certain kind of eternal life since the very beginning.

In the 1960s and 70s there were people who claimed that the Apollo space missions were all faked because if people really had gone into space they would have encountered God  because that's where heaven was supposed to be. What they failed to take into account is the near-universal truth that astronauts of many different religious traditions report their trip into space as a faith-deepening experience. Maybe God really is out there, even if we might disagree on the specifics of what is meant by that.

At the end of Gravity, Ryan Stone is pulled back down to Earth, but having taken time away from the planet, she has a new appreciation of the colour, beauty and wonder of this world. Away from movie fakery, real astronauts report the same thing. From the vantage point of the International Space Station, the world is a beautiful, fragile thing, a bright light in the darkness of space of which even grey Crewe on a wet Saturday afternoon is a part.

If the view from where you're sitting isn't inspiring you, then you can at least take a look from above via the internet. I loved astronaut Chris Hadfield's cover of Space Oddity as recorded on the International Space Station. Even if you don't like the song, you will surely admire the view.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

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