I am writing this on the last day of summer, on the verge of the autumn equinox. Today was a hot day, but the nights have been crisp and getting colder and colder. The lengths of the daylight and darkness are in balance today, and the moon is full tonight, but so far, hiding behind the clouds. When the church program year starts up, things get busy very quickly, and it can be easy for me to forget to go outside.
Going outside is a kind of spiritual discipline for me. I mentioned in a sermon on September 12th that the earth is like our UU Bible, the universe is our sacred text. At least, that is true for me. Now, technically, everything single thing around us is a part of the earth—and so are we. The separation we make between “nature” and “artificial stuff” is artificial itself. So, even inside our houses and surrounded by human-made technologies, we might recognize that all of this is also the earth. But, it seems easier to remember the wonder and beauty of this world when we are surrounded by living and growing things.
Among our human-made technologies we can harbor the illusion that we are in control. When we go outside, we see that life has its own energy and direction, and its constant transformations. One day, a flower is there where none was before. Another day I see the first flash of red leaves on a tree. Every so often, a small animal makes its way through the fields or woods, at the edge of my line of sight. This is my favorite time to be outside in our neighborhood. The flies of summer—which certainly offer their own sermons on how humans are not in control—finally stop their pestering; there is an ease of movement in the cooler weather. The colors are full of angled light.
I was looking up at the stars the other night, and wondering—isn't it amazing that we can see the stars? Just a small shift in the chemical makeup of the atmosphere and we might never have been able to perceive them at all. Yet they have been a source of myth and story, question and exploration for eons. These astronomical bodies are so far away we had to invent a new word for the distances—light years. Yet we can see them with our tiny human eyes. So there I was being amazed about it all, and I wondered, why can we see the stars? And the little thought came to me, we can see the stars so that we'll know we are not alone.
Maybe a different thought will come into your heart, when you are looking at the stars. But I hope you will find wonder and beauty this season. Remember to go outside.
Rev. Myke
P.S. And remember to bring your starry dreams to our 2020 Visioning Day, October 23rd.
