Scripture:
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Matthew 7:15-20
Reflection:
My most favorite place to be (after the ocean) is under the night sky enjoying all of the stars. "All of the stars" is a relative term considering that I now live in a big city where it rains a lot. But I’m speaking of the night sky where you can see a zillion stars and on many occasions you can see a shooting star.
When we lived out in the country we had a swimming pool in our backyard and sometimes late at night I would get up and go float in the pool on my back so that I could revel in that sight. It’s one of the easiest places for me to see and talk to God. We also had a hot tub on our deck just outside of our bedroom, which is where you could find me every night talking to the Lord. Night prayer in a hot tub – what could be better? Plus it’s warmer than a swimming pool!
The night sky is brilliant and breathtaking. But count the stars? Ha! I read somewhere that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy and 100 billion galaxies in the universe!!! I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around that number, but I know that one day I will get to explore them first hand. Wahoo!!!
One year we held our yearly dealer meeting way up in the mountains during the Perseid meteor shower. If you got up in the middle of the night, you could see shooting stars at the rate of about one per minute (sometimes more). That is a lot of shooting stars! So I got all of the kids and my reluctant husband up at about 3 AM and said, "Let’s go outside and watch the show!" We laid on the concrete parking lot and it was great! As one of the stars zoomed by I said, "I wish I could take a ride on one of those!" (And my husband said, "Can I go back to bed now?") Then it hit me, we were at that very moment hurtling through space on our own shooting star – the earth! Not only were we traveling through space, but we were also rotating at the same time.
At this very moment we are on an incredibly wild ride and we don’t even notice because of the speed! Isn’t life like that much of the time? We are going so fast, we miss the miracles that are happening all around us every day. SLOW DOWN!!! Open your eyes and the eyes of your heart and see the Lord weaving beauty into life at every turn. The miracles are too numerous to count, just like the stars in the sky.
Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Portland, OR and partner with Passionist Fr. Cedric Pisegna in Fr. Cedric Ministries. Janice also leads women’s retreats. She is the mother of 4 grown children and grandmother of 4. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.jcarleton.com/ or email her at janice@frcedric/org