Celestial Aesthetics: Over Our Heads and/or in Our Heads
— Theology and Science 2011

"Celestial Aesthetics: Over Our Heads and/or in Our Heads," Theology and Science 9(2011):273-285. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/45062

Address at the 7th International Conference on Environmental Aesthetics, University of Joensuu, at the Valamo Monastery, Heinävesi, Finland, March 2009. Looking at the night sky, we may seem cosmic dwarfs, overwhelmed with a sense of otherness, abyss. But humans alone enjoy such celestial awe. We can move to a sense of the beholder's celestial ancestry and ongoing relatedness in "our cosmic habitat." That account joins aesthetics with mathematics, finds dramatic interrelationships gathered under "the anthropic principle," and considers meteorological aesthetics. The wonder is as much this Homo sapiens with mind enough to search the universe. What is out there is inseparably linked with what is down here. We are at home in the universe. The glory is both over our heads and in our heads.