Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes

Once upon a time a little probe was sent out into outer space to look for life and adventure out far beyond its home here in the solar system.

He was a brave little probe, all studded and bristling with sensors and scopes to see and taste and feel what worlds beyond our own might have to offer.

The smart scientists who made him were very proud of their little probe.  What a fine thing it was to see him launching up into the sky, the end result of all their years of hard work finally going out into the wilds of space to earn its fortune.  The scientists threw a party to say goodbye and they waved him on his way with joy in their hearts and perhaps a tear or two in their eyes.

Up, up, and away he blasted on tails of fire through the atmosphere!  Then came the long and patient years of travel through the cold vacuum seas of space that separate one star from another.

How lonely our brave little probe must have been, to spend so many days with nothing more than space dust as his company.  He cheered himself a bit by singing “Here I am, here I am, here I am” back to the scientists who’d sent him and “Here I come, here I come, here I come” out to whoever or whatever awated him at the end of his long journey.

Then at last his destination came in view.  This had been so long in coming that many of the young scientists who’d sent him out had become the grandmas and grandpas of a whole new batch of young scientists who’d learned in school about the little probe and watched and waited alongside their mothers and grandmothers for news of other planets.

And what did the little probe find?  What pictures did he send back to his friends back at home who waited so eagerly to learn about the galaxy?  Why, even I don’t know the answer.

Perhaps he found cities filled with strange bug eyed alien monsters.

Or perhaps he found a supernova, a star in the middle of a huge explosion!

Maybe he found itty bitty forms of life, no bigger than a germ or a bacteria.  Or huge gas planets in every color of the rainboy.  Maybe he found a friend, a fellow probe sent from a distant planet where the aliens who lived there were as curious about himself as he was about them.

I can’t tell you what he found because it hasn’t happened yet, but one day if we all dream hard enough our little probes will visit the stars to tell them “Here I am, here I am, come visit with me.”

i might get my brother to illustrate this one.  he suggested i try a childrens book a couple weeks ago.  but for now the pictures will have to be supplied by your imaginations