And just like that, there’s yet another reason to believe. 

This time it was a comment from the astronauts that circled the moon last April that got my attention. 

They said something about seeing “impact flashes” when they were on the far side of the moon, and the reaction from home base here on Earth confirmed the significance of those sightings.

Several sources explained the flashes as meteors hitting the lunar surface and hitting it hard. The same sources would then point out how any future lunar colony would have to protect people against that sort of thing falling fast and hard out of the sky because unlike on Earth, there is no atmosphere to break their fall.

And while they’re talking about meteors and colonies and roofing on the Moon, I’m thinking about atmosphere on the Earth.

I know it’s a thin layer that has just the right amount of the very combination of elements we need to breathe. I know it makes it possible for us to see blue sky in the day and sometimes amazingly colorful skies in the mornings and evenings.

I know the air in that atmosphere gets thinner as you go farther from earth. I know it’s hard to break back in if you’re an astronaut flying outside it.

But I didn’t think about how it protects us from most falling meteors so that instead of the threat of damage from a high-speed projectile, we see a delightful shooting star from a safe distance.

I’m not a scientist. And if you’re one, you’ll have figured out by now that I’m not. And perhaps you’ll want to correct my assumptions.

But this is not a technical essay. It is a grateful essay.

A grateful-for-yet-one-more-thing that-I-didn’t-even-know-I-had essay.

I know a little bit about how the tilt of the Earth makes it possible for us to have seasons and how the pull of the Moon on the Earth makes it possible for us to have tides and how being the perfect distance from the sun makes our planet not too hot and not too cold. Usually. Or at least it used to.

And how the water in the ocean evaporates and floats in clouds over land until it gets high enough to condense into rain that then fills the rivers and lakes that feed the trees and people on its way back to the ocean.

These things are planned. Organized. Put together. Not lucky eventualities or fortunate accidents.

When my eye doctor was looking at his screen at a photo of my retina, I looked over his shoulder and was blown away. The design and purpose in just that one little teeny part of my eye was amazing – in a veiny sort of way.

And then there is the ear canal and drum, the tendons in just the right places to keep your knee properly functioning, the cushioning in just the right amounts between our vertebrae, and it all adds up to be absolutely convincing – especially to a scientist, I would think – that we all and this all were created.

“You mean you don’t believe in the Big Bang?” my granddaughter asked me last week.

“No,” I answered. “I don’t.”

Because I’ve seen how each branch on a fir tree grows the same length as the one next to it but a little shorter than the ones below it.

And I’ve seen how some fish in the reef are striped and some are puffy.

And I’ve seen lightning. And the color in rainbows. And the designs in snowflakes.

And I’ve seen how blood that keeps moving around throughout your body forms a solid block once exposed to air to keep too much of it from leaving.

And I’ve heard how our atmosphere almost always protects us from meteors.

And I have yet another reason to believe.