I remember the day when we were told about MAXI J1450+460. Our televisions and radios, our phones and computers all froze up to display a message to us. A supermassive black hole, coldly named MAXI J1450+460, was due to destroy our world in less than one month. I remember the man who opened up the official video announcing the end of the world. He was a charismatic man, somewhere in his twenties. I vaguely remember seeing him from other announcements from the government, he must have been a spokesperson or the other. What I had remembered most about him was his smile; it was very charming and suitable for someone of his position. However, this time he wore a grave expression on his face. He started talking about the weight of the following announcement, before bringing on some scientist dressed in a freshly-ironed lab coat, something that looked made for display in a museum rather than for actual research. She started talking, and said that they had recently discovered that a black hole had suddenly appeared on their scans. Within the next two weeks our world would be devoured. There was nothing we could do, no safe haven for us to flee to. Even if we tried to run, we would not be able to go far enough to escape its pull. She said that her team did not know why this black hole was not noticed earlier, or why it is able to move so fast. The mere fact it had done so was outside of what was thought to be the realm of possibility, she said. Unfortunately, we would not live long enough to come up with better theories.

 The mystery of MAXI J1450+460’s appearance created speculation among the remaining people of Earth. Many of them viewed it as a divine punishment. It was a rapture created by God. Why? Nobody could agree. A leading theory was that we were impure and all must need to be erased outright. Others stated that the black hole would take us to whatever promised land awaited us inside. What was most interesting was those who worshipped that black hole. Rather than the black hole being a vehicle for the divine, it was the divine itself. It had seen humanity’s imperfections, our sins, and was willing to cleanse us of them. How much difference was there really between them and the other religious fanatics I will never know. I found myself becoming somewhat of a fanatic myself, but I saw things for how they were. I understood that fundamentally the black hole has no reason, no intention. There was no decision made that the black hole must come to destroy our world. Neither the black hole nor some divine entity chose to have it appear here in a way we could not reason; nor was there any reason in its acceleration towards us. The black hole just is. It is a consequence of a mysterious mechanism which we will never be allowed to reason about. Not because of the will of some being, but because of the laws of nature. That is the true divine.