Do you see what I see?

The recent bad weather had me snowed-in last weekend. By the time the roads were clear, I had become full blown stir-crazy. Desperately needing to get out & rejoin civilization, I decided that a trip to the nearby planetarium might do the trick. So I jumped into my car and headed off for what would become the adventure of a lifetime. This story is too unbelievable to be true, but it did happen…partially.
After an hour of driving I finally arrived at the ‘Smallville Planetarium – home of the largest telescopes in the state’. I was impressed as I entered the huge ball shaped building. There were 20 or so people in the Main Observatory staring into telescopes at the star-filled evening sky. As I looked around the room, I noticed that people were gazing at all sorts of celestial bodies from the constellation Cassiopeia to the Andromeda galaxy. I quickly found an unoccupied telescope and sat down to do some star watching of my own. The time flew by quickly and it was soon time for me to head for back home.

As I cruised down the highway; reflecting on the magnificence of our universe, my car suddenly stopped and a brilliant beam of light shone down on the highway just in front of me. Normally this would have been cause to panic, but this scenario had a strangely familiar feeling to it. I got out of my car, took a closer look into the light and there ‘he’ was: Orville Reddenbocker. Not the real one, but an alien from another planet who kind of resembles the popcorn guy.

“Howdy Drew Pillow” the spaceman said.

“Howdy Orville, what can I do for you?” I replied.

“Would you mind answering a few questions for me today?” he asked and I answered: “Sure. Fire away – No wait don’t fire! What I mean to say is: I don’t mind.” Then he began inquiring about all manner of seemingly unimportant topics and after maybe fifteen minutes he thanked me, said ‘good-bye’, then abruptly turned and headed back toward the light. I quickly said to him:

“Wait-a-minute!” he turned around and said: “Yes?”

I said: “Before you go can I ask you a question?”

“Sure you may.” He responded.

Now I thought very carefully about the question I would ask because who knows when another opportunity like this one will come along. Finally I decided on a question. I asked: “Why is there so much conflict in the world? Why can’t people seem to ever see eye-to-eye?” He smiled at me. I guess he was proud of the fact that I hadn’t asked him for tomorrow’s lottery numbers (although I did consider that one). He then said to me: “Come with me and I will show you the answer to your question.” I was a little apprehensive about taking a ride on his ship – to say the least. He must’ve sensed this because he said to me: “You can trust me, its ok.” So I followed him aboard his ship. It seemed like as soon as the door shut it reopened and we were now hovering above the same planetarium that I had visited earlier. We could somehow see through the ceiling of the building into the Observatory Hall where people were still gathered looking at the stars. “Do you see those people down there; if you ask each of them to describe what they see they will each give you a different answer, even though they are all looking at the same thing right? He asked. “Right” I answered. “And which of their differing descriptions would be the accurate one.” He asked. “All of them” I answered. “Now imagine if instead of sitting in the same room these people were in places spread far and wide. Each person would believe that their description of the heavens is correct and therefore all others must be incorrect, can you now see the potential for disagreement?” I nodded my head. The door of his ship closed and then re-opened, we were once again beside my stalled vehicle. He bade me farewell and I stood lost in thought as I watched his ship disappear from sight.

I got in my car, started it up and resumed the drive to my home. Feeling dissatisfied; I now had more questions than I started with. Frustrated with myself for not asking him to explain, I banged my fist on the dashboard of my car. The radio suddenly came on and a familiar voice spoke to me above the static hiss. It said: “Your people must learn that one truth does not necessarily negate another truth; just because one person is right does not mean that another person is wrong. It is not always a matter of what you are seeing, but also of how you are looking at it.” I smiled as the voice faded away into silence. “And one more thing Drew Pillow…” the voice said suddenly. “What’s that?” I asked. “Please don’t call me Orville.” My eyebrows shot up in embarrassed surprise as I smiled and made my way back home.