From: William Stoertz
Date: Friday, July 29, 1999
Re:   The Good Earth


      THE GOOD EARTH!

   Earth is it!

   Where are you going to find such a place?
   Summer evenings with soft air soughing through gently shifting lace
curtains, in twilight shades.
   Antarctic jags in purple shadow and white sparkling glare (but at least
you can breathe!).

   In our family of planets, this Earth is not only possible to live on --
it is JUST RIGHT!
   The Earth has everything just right; the other planets just don't.

   You know how you felt when you were a kid and you went to someone else's
house, and you suddenly just wanted to be HOME!? Well, like that, only
worse. You know how you feel when you climb up in a tree and then you're
stuck there like a kitten, unable to come down or go up? Yeah, you want to
be back on the ground. You know how you feel when you are cruising in the
stratosphere, feathery cloud decks in layers below you, the earth
infinitely far beneath, and suddenly the air pressurization gives out.
Where do you want to be? That's right!

   Well, how much worse would you feel if, after a journey of twelve years
in pitch black and airless voids, you settled down onto an arid, dusty
surface like the Sahara, except no air to breathe. Qualms of homesickness!

   Home is home because that's where your parents are, that's where your
memories are, that's where your love is.

   Here is home because I've stretched the feeling of "Home" to include One
Earth, the One Earth which turns through 360 degrees every day, west to
east and back again. Russia is home for me just like America, because we
just go round and round, and the feeling is just the same (a little
different, of course), and my home and family and love are here now too. Or
at least we can talk by email. And maybe visit in about eight hours or so
every couple years, so no problem...

   Can you handle the big Universe? Is there anything out there? Is that
where we're meant to go?

   Can we extend the feeling of "Home" to include everything in our Galaxy
(our friendly neighborhood Milky Way Galaxy), or even further to include
the whole entire universe (which God made, after all...)?

   It must all be Home, in the bigger sense... I haven't solved these
questions. How about you?

Return to front page

Would you like to send William Stoertz your comments ?