Six billion

Let's just start here.

Astronomers at the University of British Columbia claim that we're not alone. That may not come as news, but let me just hit the refresh button on the absolute mind-bending enormity of our world. It's an estimate, of course--no one's been there or conducted a census, but those UBC heaven-gazers make the absurd claim that there may be as many as six billion "earthlike planets" in our galaxy. Let me use the zeros--6,000,000,000 of us. And counting. Six billion. Unimaginable.

They're not talking about random space detritus, stuff left behind. To make the UBC list, a planet was required to be rocky (not just shaving cream), earth-sized, and on an orbit around something akin to our sun. Six. Billion. Of. Us.

Now, I'm no prophet or seer, and I'm not about to argue for E.T., or some zany similar life-toid, but the mere suggestion of there being millions of worlds not unlike our own--no, billions of them--should be enough to settle the graffiti fight recorded in spray paint on the bridge connecting Sioux City to South Sioux (above), the familiar political skirmish we stumbled on a couple days ago. Any white dude who doesn't understand the importance of the affirmation of "BLM" needs to be schooled in America's past. Any white man or woman who feels the urge to one-up "BLM" with a white "ALM" (as witnessed on said bridge) is a bigot. End of sentence.

On the other hand, if there are, in fact, six billion planets not unlike our own, whether or not there's life on any other of them, anyone who says "all life matters" is thereby making a pledge so immense, so heavily faith-filled that the sheer suggestion is holy foolishness.

To believe there is a creator of this enormity, this massive universe of rock-like planets on orbit around a million sun-like stars is nutty. To believe that said Creator loves every last inhabitant of this massive world, white or black or E.T.-type, is a brazen act of crazed faith. Think not? Then start here, with us: there are, hereabouts, 7.8 billion of us aboard this one of ours. ALL LIVES MATTER. Go on--bend your mind around that tally.

Honestly, to truly believe ALM is true is to set a course in this world that's big enough to say "Black Lives Matter" without fingers crossed, without asterisks or footnotes, and certainly without wielding a can of white spray paint. 

To say "ALM" requires humility, compassion, a commitment to serving billions of others. Any other use of that line is criminal. Any other use of that phrase is something we used to call sin.