Wednesday, October 19, 2016

You Are Here

Our weekend at St. Benedict's Monastery in Bristow, VA afforded us a chance to spend some time in Washington, D.C. It was a quite a treat, and all those memories of childhood visits came racing back as we took in the Smithsonian museums.

I didn't realize that this blog post was writing itself through the pictures I was taking, but suddenly I realized a similar theme, which then became the title of this entry.

We began our adventure at the Air and Space Museum, which is my personal favorite, and you would know exactly where I was by plugging in some coordinates.

We also saw the first GPS from 1995. I didn't know that they even existed then, and I am sure that without a brightly-colored screen helping me, I would still be lost if I used this! (This one was used for flight.)

I also didn't know that farmers use GPS to help them for "precision agriculture."

Moving away from Earth, something that I found fascinating was a projection of very recent video on the surface of the moon.

We moved over to the Museum of Natural History next, where we saw a great IMAX about our national parks. Then, we were off to American History, where we were reminded how far we've come with technology over the years.

And, as we journeyed back to the monastery, I got to see a feature on Google Maps that I hadn't seen yet - notifications when you reach a new state - the GPS equivalent of honking your horn!

Let us walk in the holy presence.

Pax in Terra: A Meditation from Pema Chödrön

" One of the astronauts who went to the moon later described his experience looking back at Earth from that perspective. Earth looked s...