Some coincidences leave us wondering.
When I interviewed astrophysicist Jennifer Wiseman for Created in the Image of God, I was not in my usual place. My son and I had been stranded for more than 24 hours in British Columbia after a delayed flight turned into a canceled one. We got to a hotel at 2:00 a.m., grabbed a few hours of sleep, and came back to the airport to wait some more.
And so, for this conversation about the cosmos, wonder, and the heavens declaring the glory of God, I ended up broadcasting from an airport observation deck.
Not a virtual background. The real thing.
What struck me was not only the fittingness of it, but the emptiness. Here was a place literally designed for looking, and almost no one was there. Down below was the usual hustle: people checking bags, checking phones, checking the clock, checking out mentally. Up above was quiet space, glass, light, distance, perspective.
It felt like a parable.
We live in a wonder-filled universe, and yet we rarely stop to observe.
That was one of the great gifts of my conversation with Jennifer Wiseman. She is an accomplished astrophysicist—trained in radio astronomy, experienced with NASA, Hubble, Capitol Hill science policy, and some of the most sophisticated tools humans have ever built to study the universe. But what stayed with me was not just what she knows. It was how she sees.
Jennifer reminded me that wonder is not automatic.
It is a discipline.
Places built for looking
Jennifer grew up in rural Arkansas, where dark skies were still dark and the stars could still do what stars are meant to do: interrupt you. She spoke of seeing the night sky as a child, of watching the early images coming back from Jupiter and Saturn, of being captivated by Cosmos, and of being encouraged by teachers, family, and church to believe that studying creation was a worthy use of the mind.
That mattered to me.
Not just because it’s a good origin story, but because it points to something we increasingly lack: an environment that trains people to notice.
She also told a beautiful story about Blanchard Springs Caverns in the Ozarks—a living underground cavern system where stalactites and stalagmites have formed one drop at a time. As a child, she loved going there, and it shaped her imagination. It taught her that beauty can take time. That nature is not hurried. That grandeur is often the result of patience.
That insight prepared her, she said, to understand a universe that also unfolds over immense periods of time.
One drop at a time.
One star at a time.
One galaxy at a time.
In our conversation, I mentioned another example of how hard it has become to really see. On Hawaii’s Big Island, my family went up toward Mauna Kea to catch the night sky away from light pollution. It should have been one of those unforgettable moments. And yet people kept getting in and out of their cars, doors opening, dome lights flashing, headlights sweeping the dark. Everyone had gone there for the stars, but many seemed unable to stop interfering with the very darkness that made the stars visible.
My kids told me to relax.
But I was thinking: this is the problem, isn’t it?
We want wonder without surrendering distraction.
We want awe while keeping the car door open.
Jennifer put it beautifully when she said that wonder can begin in deep space, but it can also begin at your feet: with a clover, an insect wing, a moonrise, a cavern wall, a spring bubbling out of rock. The issue is not that beauty is absent. The issue is that attention is scarce.
The heavens declare—without words
One of the most memorable moments in our conversation came when Jennifer reflected on Psalm 19:
“The heavens declare the glory of God.”
She pointed out something I had not been dwelling on enough. The psalm says that creation pours forth speech and knowledge day after day and night after night—but not with words.
That is exactly right.
The heavens declare, but not in sentences. Not in slogans. Not in talking points.
They declare through order, beauty, scale, intelligibility, hiddenness, process, mystery, and the astonishing fact that the universe can be studied at all.
Jennifer walked us through images of nebulae where stars are still forming, galaxies rich with structure and history, and deep surveys of the sky showing not a handful of isolated objects but immense diversity: hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with its own story, composition, and stage of development.
One of the things that struck me looking at those images was diversity. The cosmos is not visually monotonous. It is exuberantly varied. And yet it is not chaotic. It is ordered enough to be studied.
That is a profound point.
The universe is not only vast. It is intelligible.
Jennifer explained how astronomers use different kinds of telescopes because different wavelengths of light reveal different aspects of reality. Visible light, infrared, X-ray, radio waves—each opens a different window. Some forms of light are easily blocked. Others pass through what would stop visible light entirely. Some reveal structure. Some reveal composition. Some reveal motion. Some reveal hidden processes.
Science, then, is not merely measuring. At its best, it is learning how to listen.
Or perhaps better: learning how to see what has always been there, but could not yet be seen.
That includes realities we still do not fully understand. Dark matter. Dark energy. Gravitational waves. Interstellar objects passing through our solar system from elsewhere. Planets around other stars. The first infant galaxies in the early universe.
I was struck by her description of dark matter in particular. We do not see it directly, but we see its effects. Galaxies behave as though far more mass is present than we can account for with what is visible. Light bends around invisible structures. Motion gives away hidden reality.
That reminded me of something deeper and older: much of what matters most is first known by its effects.
Jesus, in explaining how the Spirit words shared that we do not see the wind, but we see the trees move.
That is true in physics.
It is also true in spirit.
Science, humility, and shared awe
Jennifer also offered what I consider an urgently needed corrective in our time: science is a powerful tool, but it is not God.
She made the distinction between science and scientism with refreshing clarity. Science is a disciplined way of asking certain kinds of questions about the natural world through measurement, repeatability, observation, and testing. It is very good at what it does. But it is not designed to answer every kind of question.
It cannot tell you what is beautiful in the deepest sense.
It cannot tell you whether love is worth sacrifice.
It cannot tell you why there is something rather than nothing.
It cannot tell you whether God hears prayer.
Those are not bad questions. In many ways they are bigger questions.
But they require different tools.
This mattered to me because we live in a time when people increasingly speak of “the science” as if science were a unified oracle rather than a method. Jennifer’s view was saner and stronger. Science is robust precisely because it is self-correcting, limited, and disciplined. It changes when better observation comes in. It knows it does not know everything. It works best when it remains itself.
That humility is one reason astronomy can be such a bridge.
Jennifer said she has found looking at the heavens to be a unifying activity. I believe that. Most people, regardless of politics or religion, are capable of being moved by the night sky or by a deep image from Hubble or Webb. Shared awe may be one of the few things left that can interrupt our tribalism long enough to remind us that we are inhabiting the same reality.
That does not solve our divisions overnight.
But it rehumanizes us.
It reminds us that before we are factions, we are creatures.
An image-bearing species in a wonder-filled universe
Toward the end of our conversation, Jennifer said something that beautifully tied science back to Created in the Image of God. She said that our ability to comprehend at least some fraction of the order of the universe points, to her, toward purpose. We are not merely accidents in a random setting. We have been endowed with a capacity to investigate, interpret, and respond.
That resonates deeply with me.
To be created in the image of God is not only to possess dignity. It is also to possess a certain kind of calling.
We are creatures who ask questions.
We are creatures who notice patterns.
We are creatures who seek meaning.
We are creatures who can turn observation into praise.
And that means wonder is not ornamental. It is part of our vocation.
Jennifer did not end with escapism. She ended with stewardship. We may someday discover life beyond Earth, or at least signs of it. But right now, the one place we know life exists in abundance is here. This planet is not disposable. Nor are the lives on it. If astronomy teaches us anything spiritually, perhaps it is not merely that the universe is big, but that life is precious.
That should produce humility.
And responsibility.
An empty observation deck in a wonder-filled universe is a fitting image for our age. We have unprecedented access to knowledge, images, instruments, and data. We can see farther than any generation before us. And yet we are still in danger of not seeing at all.
Because seeing is not just optical.
It is moral.
It is spiritual.
It is attentional.
Wonder has to be chosen.
The heavens are still declaring.
The question is whether we are listening.
Sneak Peek: What’s Coming Up on Created in the Image of God
Next on Created in the Image of God:
- Sunday, July 12 at 7:00 a.m. US Central time: I interview Graham Tomlin, theologian, author, and former Bishop of Kensington, on how Christians can engage culture with wisdom, conviction, and grace, and what it means to be a faithful witness in public life.
- Tuesday, July 14 at 8:00 p.m. Central time: I interview Vinoth Ramachandra, theologian, author, and international lecturer, on faith, justice, global culture, and the challenge of thinking beyond familiar assumptions toward a deeper vision of hope, discipleship, and engagement with the world.
