Jesus, the Stellar Lifecycle, and You

So stars are so fascinating to me. I have always been enamored with all things space. I remember from a young age, while all my friends would be in the elementary school library checking out books like "The Hardy Brothers" or Dr. Seuss, I was checking out books about outer space. I don't know where it all started, but it has not left me and I am grateful for it. As some of you may know, our Sun is just about as average of a star as you could find. It sits pretty solidly in the middle of what is called "The Mainline Sequence" of stars. All stars are basically the same. They are a concentration of mostly Hydrogen and Helium that circulates around a common center until friction and compression ignite it into the burning inferno we see today. In their cores, they fuse Hydrogen atoms into Helium, Helium and Hydrogen into Lithium, and so on and so forth. This process continues for eons and it is where we get most of the heavier elements on the periodic table. These fusion reactions (the smashing of atoms into one another until they stick) release nigh unfathomable amounts of energy into the heart of the star. This in turn, excites and accelerates other atoms into one another and the process becomes a giant feed-back loop. Well, until a point. The Sun, for its part, is not very big or hot by stellar standards. In fact, the Earth is to the Sun, what the Sun is to the largest known star, VY Canis Majoris. VY Canis Majoris is so big, that it would take a Boeing 747 flying at top speed, 11,000 years to circumnavigate it along the equator just once. If this star and our sun swapped places, VY Canis Majoris would reach beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Go ahead and google a picture of the solar system to give yourself an idea, I can wait. VY Canis Majoris is exponentially more hot and dense than the sun, which is saying something considering it takes one photon of light about one million years to travel from the core to the corona and yet only 8 minutes to leap from the corona to the earth. Crazy right? The Sun is just this pleasantly stable and moderate star. Not too big or fancy. I like it. Right now, it is plugging away at fusing atoms and making bigger atoms and shinning its life-giving radiation onto us. We need its light and heat. The pressure of the reactions within the star are equal to the crushing pull of gravity on its surface and because of the warmth and energy from within, it finds itself in a very happy, life-giving condition. As it ages however, the Sun will start producing heavier elements with a lower return on fusion energy- for the Sun, that will be carbon. When the balance starts tipping towards Carbon, then the Sun, wanting to continue to be a Sun, will begin to throw off its outer coronal layers and begin to expand. The less dense it becomes, the less it has to fight gravity. It will expand to several times its current size and will most likely expand beyond Earth's orbit. Too bad for us. It will continue this process for another several billion years and eventually either collapse into a white dwarf and give off a fraction of the heat and light it now gives, or it will become a cold, carbon ember. Think of a bazillion karat diamond or a giant piece of charcoal, one of those two. For a bigger stars, like good ol' VY Canis Majoris, things get a bit more complicated. These super-massive order of stars have a life unlike our Sun's. They can continue fusing atoms all the way past carbon until they reach Iron. Iron, the star killer. Go into your kitchen. See that cast-iron skillet? Yeah, it killed a star. What. A. Jerk. You see, fusing iron is a complete and negative reaction. It takes more energy that it creates, and for a star under the gravitational forces that VY Canis Majoris must deal with, that is very bad. This star will inflate like our sun will, but on its own ridiculous scale, but instead of politely burning out or collapsing down to only a burning core, super-giant and hyper-giant stars like to get attention. When the inner-balance of atoms within the heart of the giant stars tips a bit Iron-laden, the core loses its power to push out against gravity and gravity begins to squish it. I, being a layman, cannot begin to describe the extreme forces that are at work in this process suffice to say they are ginormous. The core is the first to collapse, but it does so at such a violently fast pace, that the outer layers and corona of the giant stars do not have time to react and the collapsing core rebounds against itself and slams into the layers surrounding it. We call this a supernova. The heavier elements in the core collide with other heavy elements and those are fused together and that is how we get every element heavier than iron on the periodic table. Crazy right? So what's left after all this chaos? There are only a few outcomes: 1) The star sufficiently destroyed itself that nothing is left except a rapidly expanding gas cloud; aka a nebula. 2) A small, super-dense core remains that has been energized and heated up in the preceding explosion. This is what is commonly known as a neutron star, but can also be called a magnetar, pulsar, or possibly even a quark-star. Gravity here is so dense that a one centimeter cube of this stuff would fall straight through the Earth like my kid jams a finger into jello. Think of something dozens of times the mass of the sun, but only the size of manhattan, and you get an idea of the density. Oh yeah, it spins really fast. Some have been clocked at up to 30,000 revolutions per minute! The magnetic field generated by this spin is such that if the Sun were replaced by one of these, it would suck the metal out of your mouth and erase the credit cards in your wallet. Yikes. It also spews forth enough Gamma Radiation to make even the Hulk jealous. Basically it would kill you. 3) A Black Hole would be left. Yeah, those things. They are so weird and freakish that even falling into them breaks math. Man, that stuff is just neat! But wait, what about you? And what does this have to do with Jesus? Well, our star is some simple unassuming star and look what it does. By all appearances, our star is nothing fancy or exciting and seems to lead this hum-drum existence, and yet it gives life to everything we know and see! Jesus loves to use the small and the average! This is why he sometimes selects the most unlikely and most unqualified to do His work! The enemy doesn't understand this. He is always prowling about seeking for someone to devour, but he does not understand the mind and heart of our Lord, so he looks for the big guys like VY Canis Majoris, so God's purposes can go on undisturbed because to Him, there are no little people and no little places. The simple, humble warmth from our Sun produces and powers all the life you see. It is an incredible dynamo of life-giving force. However, we must all be wary and not let our hearts grow cold. Just like the cores of stars everywhere must constantly be producing heat and energy, so must our hearts be aflame for God! When we begin to grow cold and lose the fire that we once had, we puff ourselves up, maybe destroy a few lives in the process, but our net gain is slightly positive....maybe. This goes doubly so for those of us that fall into the super giant category. Those of us that are most visible or talented, those of us that are given more responsibility or gifts; we must fight the hardest to keep the flame fresh and hot. For if one of these grows cold and their heart turns hard as iron, then the destruction is magnified. If you are one that burns bright, know that you are a very visible target and seek to keep your heart white hot with love for God and love for people else you may become one that causes more destruction than you could imagine and if you are one that looks around and find yourself humble and your resources meager, look up at the Sun and know the Son can you use you beyond your wildest dreams. - Scroggins

July 2014 Update

This month has a been a full and busy month. We have had the joy of visiting churches in the area and we have had a blast! We visited a bible study group in Victoria and got to spend time with our dear friends the Blaylocks. We stopped by churches in El Campo and Wharton and had the greatest times with Pastor Danny and Susan Roberts and Pastor Travis and Caree Glass. I'm serious when I tell you that they are some of the best people we have had the pleasure of spending time with. Their churches were so warm and welcoming to us, we really felt like family. Next, we headed down the road to Willis and spent time with a thriving church plant led by Pastor Steve Taylor, who just so happens to have a youth pastor that you may remember by the name of Josh Pantano. Josh was one of our guys in resource group and was a godly influence on so many lives, but now he and his wife are working in the market place and also leading the youth at their church. We then headed out to visit our favorite church on River street in Cleveland, TX and spent the day with Pastor Troy and Camille O'Quin. They invited me to play bass on their worship team which is an honor I will always accept! The O'Quins are leading a church revitalization project and have become close friends of ours without whom life would lose so much of its luster. Christopher Glass and Henry after service. They became best friends. This is exactly why we love this season of our lives. It is a long and tiring period, but we get to meet so many wonderful people that become woven into our hearts. All of our team is so important and special to us. You are all our Simon of Cyrene that helps us carry our cross and our burden; helps us accomplish what God has asked of us. Without you, we could not do it. We need and cherish every single one of you! -Krystopher