Stars
Half Way to the Shed
Psalm 8
O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
After a too busy three weeks, in which I had hardly any time off, I started work at 9am on a project that had to be finished in two days time. I worked all day and it was much slower than I expected. So I continued into the night after tea, and stayed up all night, only pausing for breakfast and to take Chris and Debbie down to the train. And I kept working through the day until the next tea time. I was a late getting tea, so it was well and truly dark when I ducked out to the shed to get something from the deep freeze.
I breathed the cold air in deeply and looked up at the stars. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name. It really was 'a breath of fresh air.' For thirty six hours I had been hammering at a keyboard, and become divorced from the real world.
How many laws are passed late at night in the stale air of a parliamentary chamber where the politicians have not really been outside and seen the world for days? What commercial decisions are made high above the good earth, insulated in glass and steel, upon noise dulling carpet in air conditioned so life cannot be smelled? Perfume, deodorant and aftershave, no sweat, no pollen, no dust or smog to accuse or even question the ethics of monetary decision. And often, all sense of God tidied away and forgotten with last years files.
We need the land and sky and stars. Land and air and trees give us life. And they remind us we are small what are human beings that God even cares for us?
Look around us here... Take time to stop and look at the trees and stars, or simply stand and watch the rain. In these things God is offering to pull our inside, electronic, money driven lives back into some perspective. We are being offered a gift of freedom and healing.
Direct Biblical quotations in this site are taken from The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
