There is a tendency to confuse life with Deity. Life and its force runs throughout those creations which cling to the Crust. But life in and of itself is not divine. It iS quite special; it IS a glory; it IS far more wonderful than the stars and the Void and the forces of gravity and electricity. Time, space, and compound interest are no more divine than is capitalism. For, if everything is divine, then there is nothing special about divinity.

Life engages in a titanic struggle to assert and maintain itself in this hostile setting. The struggle has thus far been successful and life has grown to cover more of the cooling crust of the orb. The forms of life have grown ever more complex and have, lately even been able to move to a neighboring orb, although not yet to establish and maintain a presence there. The highest forms of life, however, remain confident that they can, at some future time, succeed in the planting and colonizing effort there. It is only a matter of time.

This feat is remarkable, for the outcome has not been a certainty. Life and its force have, however, been relentless, and one form or another of life have always operated under the rule that, when necessary, any given form must be surrendered, or must surrender, in order that the forward thrust of life not be thwarted by the “selfishness” of any single form or species.

This force and its goal are somehow always recognized and obeyed. Homo sapiens has not necessarily formally acknowledged this truth, but has ultimately obeyed it even in times of temptation. (Such times have been called insanity, etc. Suicide is a crime for this very reason.) In the rather short time frame of the past few hundred years, life has found ways to increase the fecundity and productivity of some of its constituent parts and to overcome situations of apparent excessive growth of certain species – “overpopulation”, so called.

This is a force which is more remarkable than such forces as gravity, photo-electricity, compound interest, quarks or interstellar winds. It is truly a glory, exceeding the stars or the void. Yet I do not hold it to rise to the level of divinity. There is a temptation to confuse life with Deity, at least in part because the hostile elements (the “chaos” in Genesis) cannot ever appreciate divinity.