I just found this over at GeekGrrl's. It really is quite moving.

"The Columbia Tragedy -- by all the top cartoonists"

Stars.
People often look at stars and say: "doesn't it make you realise how small and insignificant you are, seeing the vast Universe up there, with all those stars?"
Er... no, actually.
I've been told more times than I can remember how it puts us all into perspective, this night sky, but I don't buy it.
I know that these stars are separated by distances so vast they dwarf anything we have experienced here on Earth... yet I can reach out my hand and link a dozen or more between my fingers. I can see the patterns they make, and take a whole sky's worth of them in a single glance.
I was not given this ability for nothing. I have been blessed the ability to bless the things I experience with my imagination, to draw magic from the raw materials around me... the breeze and the clouds, the flowers and the rocks, the ponds and the rivers, the forests and the seashores... the eyes of people I meet (each hiding an entire world behind them, just as mine do)...
Wearing our insignificance like a badge of honour is easy. Acknowledging our significance, recognising that we matter and holding the full terrifying force of that mattering in our souls... that takes more courage.
But the Universe smiles every time we recognise the mattering.

Thoughtfully shared by: John Hulme at February 5, 2003 11:59 AM