There's something very spiritual, very magical in a sense, about nature. Now, I'm not some hippie Gaia worshiper, nor am I a pantheist who sees God "in the tree," but I am someone who is seeking to grow ever more aware of what God has created.
Several years ago (2001), I was sitting at a rooftop cafe in Istanbul, several blocks from the Hagia Sophia. We were eating some sort of dessert and drinking that thick Turkish coffee, when talk turned to things of a more eternal nature. The part of the city we were in didn't have much light pollution, so the sky was magnificent. One of my friends looked at the Hagia Sophia and said, "this is what Man has made," and then looked at the sky and said, "and this is what God has made."
That's always struck a cord with me, it's something I won't allow to fade into the backdrops of my memory. We might look around at our humanized, localized, sterilized, world and bask in the self-satisfactory glory of what our race, the race of Men, has accomplished. And yet, take a minute to look upwards to the heavens on a clear night, and you will almost hear the very stars proclaiming the glory of their Creator.
There is something sacred about the stars. I'm not one for astrology, for I know that the stars have no power to determine our destinies, but I can't help but wonder if modern man in all his mechanical wisdom hasn't lost a part of his soul, the part that is awakened in the middle of the night when Diana the Huntress is out in full regalia, surrounded by her court of stars. Or when rosy-fingered dawn appears on the horizon in the early stretches of the morning, as Apollo takes up his chariot once again to bring us the dawn.
Don't lecture me for fancying some form of paganism, I did nothing of the sort! Merely, we should all take some time to just sit outside under the stars and let our souls be open to listen to what the stars are singing about their Creator.
Michael Card, a singer/songwriter in Middle Tennessee, put it this way:
"A billion bright and holy beams
From a light that's traveled far
Began the trip from His fingertips
O the wonder of the stars.
Affirm the signs and seasons,
So silently they sing
Of the wonder of their kindred
Of the power of their King"
Several years ago (2001), I was sitting at a rooftop cafe in Istanbul, several blocks from the Hagia Sophia. We were eating some sort of dessert and drinking that thick Turkish coffee, when talk turned to things of a more eternal nature. The part of the city we were in didn't have much light pollution, so the sky was magnificent. One of my friends looked at the Hagia Sophia and said, "this is what Man has made," and then looked at the sky and said, "and this is what God has made."
That's always struck a cord with me, it's something I won't allow to fade into the backdrops of my memory. We might look around at our humanized, localized, sterilized, world and bask in the self-satisfactory glory of what our race, the race of Men, has accomplished. And yet, take a minute to look upwards to the heavens on a clear night, and you will almost hear the very stars proclaiming the glory of their Creator.
There is something sacred about the stars. I'm not one for astrology, for I know that the stars have no power to determine our destinies, but I can't help but wonder if modern man in all his mechanical wisdom hasn't lost a part of his soul, the part that is awakened in the middle of the night when Diana the Huntress is out in full regalia, surrounded by her court of stars. Or when rosy-fingered dawn appears on the horizon in the early stretches of the morning, as Apollo takes up his chariot once again to bring us the dawn.
Don't lecture me for fancying some form of paganism, I did nothing of the sort! Merely, we should all take some time to just sit outside under the stars and let our souls be open to listen to what the stars are singing about their Creator.
Michael Card, a singer/songwriter in Middle Tennessee, put it this way:
"A billion bright and holy beams
From a light that's traveled far
Began the trip from His fingertips
O the wonder of the stars.
Affirm the signs and seasons,
So silently they sing
Of the wonder of their kindred
Of the power of their King"
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