Concerning Things High and Deep

Some people like to get away from the artificial lights on a starry night, gaze up at the salted black canopy, and contemplate the Creator’s power and immensity.  Having lived near cities all my life I never realized what a clear night sky really looked like until I got out of a car in the middle of Tennessee, or maybe it was Arkansas, to stretch my legs on a lonely highway at two o’clock in the morning on my way home from college in 1971. I stood there dumbstruck as I scanned the panoply of lights that domed over me. There was no moon, no street lights, no headlights, but those of my own car. So I shut the beamers off, and there I stood with only the stars to see.  Until that moment I had no experience of all that was actually there to see above, the millions of these twinkling white lights, each sending its own single ray to my eyes. “Now I see the universe,” I thought to myself.

It was so quiet. Not a sound that I can remember to give competition to my eyes.  When I later studied Greek philosophy and read something about the “music of the spheres” I remembered the silent stars I listened to that night.  I remembered being a bit frightened too, by another spectacle, which I had never seen, except in pictures.  Shooting stars!  Within seconds after this invisible curtain parted above me one of these lights silently fell, streaking down toward the horizon for about a finger length’s distance and disappearing in a millisecond into the blackness. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “and I hadn’t even asked God for a sign!” A few seconds later it happened again, that’s when I got a little worried.  “Is something going to happen here,” I wondered, “something apocalyptic?” Suddenly a third light darted horizontally across the canopy.  This one was brighter and it went a lot farther.

I guess it was the silence that calmed me down.  This wasn’t the end of the world.  That wasn’t coming until next year.  (Remember the 1972 prophecy that circulated among the more traditional Catholic circles in the late sixties?  Or, am I confusing the end of the world with the warning sign that was promised at Garabandal? A concerned “friend” did give my mother one of those miraculous polaroid snapshots with the year 1972 scribbled across a picture of some visionary’s outdoor shrine.)

No, not the end of the world at all.  As I soon discovered living in the foothills of California the very next year, shooting stars are a regular event in the night sky once you get away from all the neon lights.

And, now, I have arrived at the paragraph wherein I shall, for those who wish to know it, make my point.  One need not always look up to contemplate God’s omnipotence and immensity.  Perhaps it’s just my own peculiar quirk, but I get an appreciation for His infinite power, or maybe it’s my own nothingness, when I look down; I mean a long way down, farther than my feet.  I would say anything above thirty feet will start the wheels turning, both those of my physical vertigo, and those engaging my spiritual appreciation of God’s awesome power.  Only the Omnipotent and Infinite God could create stars, which beckon man to seek Him, and gravity, which should compel man to seek Him.  The stars can help us to realize and appreciate the awesome nobility of being children of God, indeed sons of God; whereas, on the other hand, gravity can help us to trust in His paternal providence because of our nothingness.  Another thing about gravity, which makes it even more awesome, is that its whatness (essence) eludes man’s understanding.  Science can only measure it and work with it, but what exactly it is remains a mystery. Imagine that, we know what a star is, although we cannot use it for anything practical, and we don’t know what gravity is but we use it all the time — indeed we have to.

One must stand up and lift one’s eyes to see the heavens; and that is why man was created to walk upright and nobly.  Then, again, by bowing our heads before God, especially at the mention of His Holy Name, Jesus, we acknowledge in gesture our nothingness and gratitude.

Praise ye him, O sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars and light (Psalm 148:3).

Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all ye deeps: (Psalm 148:7)