Joseph M. Madda

Years ago, I found it in a gift shop in Mendocino, California. Browsing casually, I came upon a glass art collection. Nestled in a corner bin, a little blue object caught my eye. I picked it up, closely scrutinized it. The blue glass orb was covered with the earth’s continents, rendered accurately. It was the only one of its kind. To this day, I don’t know who made it or how it appeared there. I only knew I had to have it.

Days later at home, I found a small black felt pouch left over from some long-lost knickknack. A perfect way to protect it. I carry this tiny good-luck talisman with me, always in its pouch, when I make major trips. I figure it’s harder to lose the pouch than the nickel-sized orb.

Over time, I considered its carefully wrought detail. The full color realism of green and brown land masses is fascinating. Even the tiniest hints of snow on the tops of mountains. The glossy blue of the oceans glows in sunlight and casts pleasing blue/gray shadows.

I muse on the scale of it. We humans experience our planetary home as vast, virtually endless. I have traveled many places in my three score and twelve years. Yet I, and indeed each of us, will only see a tiny fraction of the actual world throughout our lifetimes. Here though I have in my pocket a comprehensive simulacrum of that massiveness.

Our planet also is infinitely small, a mere mote against the majesty of the universe. Our blue green world whirling through the black of the cosmos is but a moment in time and space. My little friend tells me of that too. Whether big or small, our world is the only one we have so far. My blue marble reminds me most of all, that we need to be kind to our home.

Yes, the whole planet is right there on my palm. Is this how a Supreme Being feels? Like the old spiritual says, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”