Stars

Photo from Astronomy Photo of the day (link at right)

March 14, 2006

It’s 1:05 am and I cannot sleep. I have a good reason tonight – I slept for a long time earlier this past afternoon. I’ve been ill with a nasty head cold, wiped out for several days. I was in such a bad mood this afternoon that I eventually went back to bed and fell asleep within just a few minutes. Now that it is time for sleeping, however, I pay the price with sleeplessness.

I was lying in bed, once again trying not to disturb Mel, and thinking of “night.” What kind of memories do I have of night? Actually, some of my favorite memories are of the night.

The kids were elementary school age when we owned an old ’59 Chevy pickup truck. We had been living out on the prairies east of Colorado Springs, in the little town of Peyton. Mel was pastoring the church there and I was working full time at Young Life, driving over 60 miles a day round trip to and from work in Colorado Springs each day. We bought an old topper camper from someone, put it on the back of the truck and went camping several weekends over the next couple of summers. Camping up in the mountains where the air was cool and crystal clean and there were fewer people around all the time.

One time we drove up Cottonwood Pass, taking our time and enjoying the sights. During the afternoon we hiked awhile just over the summit on the west side. What incredible views up there! Miles of mountain ranges in sight at once. Billowing white and gray thunderclouds scattered across the deep blue sky over the highest peaks. Incredibly beautiful wildflowers grow along trails, roadsides and across the alpine tundra. For some reason, the higher the altitude, the smaller the flower and the brighter the color. Pinks are pinker, blues are deeper and purples are brighter. They are harder to see because they are smaller than flowers at lower altitudes, but once sighted, they bless the eye.

We ended up coming down part of Cottonwood Pass toward Taylor Reservoir after sunset, in the deepening twilight. Mel and I had decided that we would find a place on the side of the road rather than try to find a forest service campground to camp for the night. By the time we spied a dirt track leading off to the right it was completely dark. We turned off into the ditch by the road, and then drove up the rutted track and over a small hill. As we came over the top our headlights showed us an area which obviously had been used as a camping spot many times, evidenced by old fire rings scattered in clear areas between trees, and parking areas worn into the mountain soil. No one else was there, so we pulled over to the left, found a level spot and parked.

After fixing a meal of hot dogs roasted over a wood fire, followed by s’mores, three tired but happy kids reluctantly went to bed in the camper. As soon as they were quiet in sleep, Mel and I took a short walk out into an area clear of trees. We couldn’t tell if it was an open meadow, or had been cleared of trees not too long in the past until we discovered hundreds of short tree stumps scattered across the hillside. Cautiously we made our way around them, trying not to trip in the dark. The night was clear as a bell, not a cloud in sight. Starlight is incredibly bright when there is no other light source, and we soon discovered a rock large enough for both of us to sit on. We made ourselves comfortable, leaned back and looked up into the heavens.

There is no sight on earth as magnificent as looking up away from the earth, into the heavens at night. At high altitudes it is much drier which makes for very clear skies. There is less pollution in the air, both particulates as well as light pollution, to block the view of less visible stars. We gazed into the night sky, sometimes quietly talking to each other, other times silently viewing the wonders above us. The night was quiet around us as only a night in the forest can be. Used to listening to city sounds, it takes awhile to realize that the mountains are never silent. In the distance the forests softly roar as winds move through evergreen branches and between mountain peaks. Night birds hoot and the sound of wings rushing through the air nearby – was that an owl or was it a bat, I wonder. Little creatures scurry through the grasses and I wonder how many are hunters and how many are the hunted this night. Far away in the valley below we hear a coyote yip and another answer, a single cow lowing in the night. And beside me I hear my husband breathing regularly and reassuringly – I am not alone.

Suddenly Mel spotted a light traveling quickly through the stars. At first I thought it was an airplane, flying north from Los Angeles, maybe on its way to Minneapolis (it was way too high to be on it’s way to Denver, and the angle was wrong). But this light did not flash or blink and its path was straight, quick and seemed to be directly north. It’s not an airplane, Mel explained to me in a hushed voice, it’s a satellite! We watched three or four different satellites cross the night sky as we sat there.

I thought about those man-made objects flying up there in the sky. So tiny, yet we could see them, specks of light flying through the night sky against a background of twinkling stars. As each crossed into the shadow of the earth, it disappeared from view once more. They were lifeless, dead, without their own light, able only to reflect the light of the sun. Without the light of the sun, a sun that had disappeared from our view several hours earlier, we would never have seen them. We could not see the sun, but we knew that it was still shining, reflecting off those tiny metal objects in space.

How many stars are in the sky? Who can count them all? I look into space from my vantage point here on earth and my view is so limited. My eyes are imperfect – contacts and reading glasses are now needed at all times. The air is filled with humidity and clouds that block many of the stars from sight. And in or near cities, man-made pollutants and light pollution block even more from view. In the center of a large city, it is sometimes hard to even notice a full moon, much less the dimmer stars. Yet even when my eyes cannot see them, they are there. And I am reassured by that.

Intellectually I know that they are always changing, just as everything created is constantly changing. Yet they are also changeless. As long as God continues to sustain His creation, they will be there. Mysterious, never completely known by man, never visited by man, many still undiscovered. Yet, God has named them all. He brings them out one by one, and calls them each by name. He created Orion, He created the Pleiades, and He created the sun, the moon and the planets. As I look up into space at night and view His stars, I think again – God created these all for me! God knew before the foundation of the earth how much I, His child, would love His creation. He knew what pleasure I would take in looking at it, thinking about it, dreaming about it, wondering how He created it and when. And He took pleasure in creating it for me. He takes pleasure in my pleasure of His creation. The heavens declare the glory of God. And I rejoice.