Reflect

At the far west edge of Texas, about 100 miles from Mexico, the Hobby-Eberle Telescope at the McDonald Observatory rises up out of the high-desert mountains to observe objects over 12.7 billion light-years away. Two states over, in a basement at Arizona State University, a Titan Krios microscope zooms in the other direction, observing life at the level of the atom. The Hobby-Eberle and the Titan Krios are compelling reminders of the ways we can wake up to our own lives by taking a big-picture look on one hand and a focused look on the other. There’s a good argument, in fact, that the perspective capacities of our own minds and hearts might even outpace such sophisticated technology.