Living in the city, the stars are often obscured by the light created by our human living. I thought of this last week when we were encouraged to get away from the city in order to be able to see the meteor showers that took place on Sunday and Monday. The lights of malls, buildings, stadiums, airports, all blur our ability to see the magic of constellations, of meteors blazing across the sky. Seeing these flickering lights, so far from Earth, yet huge, serve to help us remember how small we are in the scheme of things,I believe .In observing the Big and Little Dippers, in locating the North Star, we are reminded that we are a part of a huge story being played out every day….and in reality, we are in the back row of the chorus. I don’t know about you, but this realization can provide a certain humbling perspective for most of the urgent and important tasks of my day.

A friend who recently returned from Argentina marveled at the constellations she was able to observe there…."stars I can’t see here!" she said. Being in a different place in the world also provides the perspective that, indeed, my world,our world is not the center of everything….only a small part of an amazing and ever changing story being played out throughout time. It can be a comforting thought when deadlines press in, when there is the implication that civilization as we know might halt if some task is not accomplished….immediately.

My mother used to quietly observe me when I would get myself whipped into a frenzy over something I felt I needed to do, had to do, should  do. "A hundred years from now, you’ll never know the difference." she would say. Of course, I hated when she said this! But the statement had the ability to stop me in my tracks, help me gain some perspective, cause me to take a deep breath. Her words provided the reminder that, while my living and actions are important, they are really a part of a picture, a story, so huge I cannot fathom it.

At a meeting on Monday night I asked someone who I know watches the night sky,who observes the constellations and is just a general star-gazer about the meteor shower. I asked if he had observed them through one of his telescopes. "No," he said. "Telescopes are no good for seeing meteors. You need to be able to see the wide-ness of the sky to see the showers. You have to see the big picture. Telescopes are only for seeing the small picture." As he said this he made a tiny circle with his hand and I could only see the flitting of his eyelashes through that small space.

The poet Wallace Stevens writes:" Light the first light of the evening, as in a room, In which we rest, for small reason, think…. The world imagined is the ultimate good. This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous. It is in that thought that we collect ourselves, out of all the indifferences, into one thing; Within a single thing, a single shawl wrapped tightly around us, since we are poor, a warmth, A light, a power, the miraulous influence. Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves. We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole, a knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous. Within its vital boundary, in the mind. We say God and the imagination are one…..How high that highest candle lights the dark. Out of this same light, out of the central mind, We make a dwelling in the evening air, in which being there together is enough."

May the stars shine brightly upon you all this weekend………………