Every once in a while I slow down enough to spend some time in the DFW Metroplex’ closest approximation to ‘nature’. Tonight I tripped over that on the front porch of my apartment.
So I was lying in front of our door, iPod ablaze, front porch light disabled and the troubles of tomorrow simmering in the sea of forgetfulness.
And I just stared at the stars for a while, probably no more than twenty minutes. (I’d been meaning to do that for some time now, truth be told.)
Well, my first thought was to grouse about the lack of stars visible in the Metroplex and how happy I’d be to one day be back in Arkansas, or Colorado, or Utah, or really anywhere where stars happened to always be on tap just for me.
Once I settled though, I began to see that there were more stars than I’d seen at first. And more. And even more. I couldn’t focus in hard enough to find the ‘bottom’ of them; the harder I stared, the more triangles my eyes tried to make and the more phantom star trails I thought I saw. Reminds me of the Carol King line that James Taylor popularized, “and the stars at night/they put on a show for us/for free”. And what a show it was!
I think the questions and grounds for meditation are as infinite as the very ranks of those stars themselves, but two are settling over me:
-Upon further examination, there is always more to ____________ than what you thought at first. Always, be it the Dallas stars, the Dallas Cowboys, the Bible, or what some kid said the other day. Everything in life bears digging a little deeper, and everything yields more.
-I wonder if, the deeper one digs into that non-finite expanse of starrage, those stars grow closer together, so much closer such that outer space is no longer cold. I wonder if most things warm up the closer they get to things of similar kin. I wonder what else changes about things as they grow closer to others like them. Stars don’t move, but I sure can.
Pray with me that you’ll dim not the stars. It doesn’t take much work to see them every single day.
Boy, you be poetic and shizzle.
yes, away from the myspace! and good thoughts on moving closer to/learning more about things unknown. that’s something i’m doing on a daily basis now, and though it’s tiring i can see definitely see it’s worth. it’s hard sometimes though. SOMETIMES, i just wanna visit #2 whitney circle, texarkana, texas 75503 for a couple of hours to get a break from things unknown for a bit. but then i realize that i’m having an experience unlike most folks, and that i’m blessed by the lord to be doing what i’m doing. and then my need for texarkana goes away for a while.