So The Moon was bright tonight, beautiful even. It was not full or rich in colour, for that matter there was not much drawing attention to it at all. There were no shooting searchlights, it was not blinking on and off like some seizure-inducing strobe light and in the time I was watching it I honestly cannot even say I saw it move. It was however comforting and selfless, its simple luminescence was timelessly beautiful. It lit up the sky illuminating empty streets and endless pathways. It hung still and patient kind of just waiting for attention or affection, bobbing perpetually amid an endless ocean of celestial ink. Beyond its reach shifting in and out behind a meandering herd of luminous clouds were a thousand flickering stars all silent and tranquil; gaseous orbs burning with individual intensities like freckles in a complexion on a beautiful face.
Beyond any of these things my mind cannot comprehend. I wonder; does it all just go on forever? Is there a lonely star at the end of the universe that marks the outermost reaches of everything? Is there a giant black divider that separates our universe from another or perhaps even Heaven for that matter? One thing I know for certain is that the night sky will forever serve as a great source of mystery and perspective to all those who are brave enough to gaze upon it and wonder.
A girl I know once confided that The Moon evoked feelings of romance and mystery. I think if I look at it long enough it just looks like it has a strange old face, or a huge silver coin, or a piece of giant space-cheese. I have never known much about romance or mystery but after years of looking upwards there is one thing I know for certain: The Moon is amazing, and nobody would disagree.
It’s funny though, how our luminous night sky so casually reflects our arrogance. We see it every night, we shoot rockets through it, we collect its falling rocks and at some point before I was even born we had it mapped in detail. We all like to think we have it all so figured out, yet we all see it so differently. Science and the neurological elite collectively see the wonder of space as a curious debate. Artists and the creative community view the night sky with blind and figurative romance and the religious and spiritual alike will forever take shelter in its endless depth. Honestly though, I am not sure any of us have even begun to discover the secrets that lie beyond the planet on which we cohabitate and I am not sure we ever will, or need to.
The thing that I love most about the night sky is that it truly highlights our inability to comprehend distance and forever and as arrogant as we are amidst our affluent, self serving, post-modern culture we will never even begin to understand the endless space through which that tiny speck of a dust we call The Moon relentlessly orbits. Perhaps the beauty is in the mystery. Perhaps knowing we can’t know will draw us toward seeking and trusting one who does. Maybe once we reflect upon our complete lack of universal control we will begin to appreciate its controller. Perhaps our liberation lies beyond its depth.
It is a lot to think about, I know. It is also even easier to speculate on. There is, however, one thing that is certain; you cannot dismiss it. I imagine that if something created everything out of endless still black, a creative explosion of sorts, just so we might gaze at it all in wonder and mystery and romance; if there was a conscious act to give a future consciousness a habitat so intensely huge and spectacular and astonishing just so we might know the enormity of its compassion. I imagine that this creator must really care a lot about those he created within it. I don’t know, maybe this creator desires and deserves a little attention in return. I do not pretend to know much about anything, but I do know that for this universe, I am so fearfully and wonderfully grateful.
The Moon, despite its beauty is not the true source of the light but like everything we’ve come to discover in our solar system, it simply reflects the Sun which during the night waits silently just beyond a distant horizon and will daily illuminate and energise everything that it has gently drawn into its huge, timeless, unrelenting force called gravity.
The Moon was bright tonight, beautiful even, and Me? I am content, loved and liberated. Amen.
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