He was still and gazed deeply into the infinite pool that bears stars into being. Above him was a tiny smudge of light that was the closest galaxy. It was spinning, spinning, but so far away that one could look for a whole lifetime and not see it alter. The galaxies out there whirled into each other like discs, blinding into space without colliding--passing through each other at thousands of miles per second, yet they did not appear to move.
Suddenly he understood: Time is an illusion of the mind. Only love remains.
Once when we were walking together, I saw Teilhard fall to his knees just to study a stone. He held it up to the light and ran his fingers carefully over its surfaces, as if he were trying to read the pattern of matter as a language. Watching him that day in the blessed silence of the field, I saw a man who could see light in the very earth under his feet. Because of him I learned not to hate our enemy, and joined with him in the work of serving those who were in need. And sometimes at sunset when the sky was bright with amazing color, I tried to look beyond the trenches — as he did so often — and see the light in this world of ours.