Presentation by Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ

6th International UNIFAS Conference July 7 – 14, 2010, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Introduction

Consider two images of the natural world. One is the by‐now familiar photo of our planet taken from space: a blue marble swirled around with white clouds against a vista of endless black. Astronauts who have seen this view with their own eyes speak of its power to change their attitude. Saudi Arabian astronaut Sultan bin Salman al‐Saud, part of an international crew, recollected: “The first day we all pointed to our own countries. The third day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were all aware of only one earth.” One astronaut blocked out the earth with his thumb, the way we can block out the moon; thinking that everyone and everything he loved was on that little dot, he realized what a precious place it really is.