Sky Message

Churches are more sparse as you head toward the inner city. The “cathe­drals” are glass and stone — ded­i­cated to busi­ness and gov­ern­ment. There is also no night sky there. When you look up, all you see is the prod­uct of human labor. Our Tow­ers of Babel block the view of galax­ies and con­stel­la­tions. Side­walks and curbs replace the paths that ani­mals and peo­ple once shared — decades or cen­turies before.
I love sky­lines. It is a real rush to walk through mod­ern canyons of archi­tec­ture. There is a cer­tain “bee­hive” energy that flows around you — ener­gized by all of the peo­ple — as they go in and out of these won­der­ful struc­tures. Still, there is a lit­tle sad­ness there, when you real­ize that most of the chil­dren and a good many of the adults have never really seen the night sky from the van­tage point of a high desert mountain…and prob­a­bly never will. There is no way to explain the mag­nif­i­cent vista of the Milky Way. Per­haps that is why churches dot the coun­try­side. With nature in the major­ity, a humil­ity of soul is triggered…and a sense of holy rev­er­ence.
Tonight there is sup­posed to an unusual con­fig­u­ra­tion of the moon and some of the plan­ets (Venus and Jupiter). It is worth the win­ter coat and a few min­utes gaze — or more. I keep binoc­u­lars around so I can see the craters on the moon and the round­ness of the plan­ets. Many times in my life, I have dri­ven out into the coun­try to see God’s sky mes­sage for the evening (“The heav­ens declare the glory of God…”). I keep one set of binoc­u­lars in the car and one in the house. There is no place in the night sky where you will not find more stars than the naked eye alone can detect. Spend a few dol­lars for the sake of awe. Give your eyes (and your soul) a boost.
For as much as I love the trees in this part of the coun­try, I really miss the open sky — day or night. One look up and your per­spec­tive returns. You are the crea­ture, not the Cre­ator. You are here to see as much as you can see in a sin­gle life­time. All of it is free. All of it points to That Which Is Greater. Advent — the sea­son of Wise Men and Women look­ing into the sky for a guid­ing star.