Stars Over The Sea - November 3, 2021

After the sun went down last night, we settled into the living room to relax. Paul stepped out on the deck and called to me, “Do you want to see some stars?” I immediately got up, wrapped my blanket around my shoulders and went out into the cool and very windy night. When I looked up, I saw hundreds of white dots, some bright, some muted, large ones and tiny ones. It’s as if someone took a pin and poked it through the dark sky, over and over so the little white lights could shine through. Anxious to find out what we were looking at, Paul took out his phone and pulled up an app. We pointed the phone above and found that we were looking at Taurus and the Little Dipper and over to the right, Saturn and Jupiter. We kept looking and found so much more.

Some of the lights were moving and we realized these were planes and helicopters. There seemed to be a whole highway system going on above. Another app showed us there were three planes going to Orlando, one of them originating in Manchester, NH! Other planes were going from Miami to Louisville, one to St. Augustine and one to New York. Kind of amazing that we could stand on our deck above the ocean and know just a little of what is going on miles and miles above us. This is entertainment at it’s finest. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

A few brighter white lights shone on the horizon, off in the distance. Fishing boats roaming the seas. I try to imagine what that profession feels like. It must be lonely in the quiet night, blackness surrounding you, except on a night like this, where you are alone with the sea and sky, and your thoughts.

Once in a while I gaze up at the night sky at home, usually on an evening when I am putting an outgoing letter in the mailbox. Between the trees, I am able to see stars on a clear New Hampshire night. Here, the vastness of the sky is awe inspiring. Wide enough, high enough and big enough to let me know I am a small, yet important part of God’s overwhelming creation of a boundless beautiful world.

It comforts me to know when I lay my head down to sleep, the stars will be up all night. On evenings when the clouds shroud their view, and they are nowhere to be seen, I know they are still there, watching over the universe.