thoughts on stars

Today, Americans are looking for lost wisdom. Ancient books of "wisdom" are increasingly popular. People are looking for old answers to new dilemmas. The search reminds me of those enchanted stories. We don't know who we are anymore. Some evil has caused us to forget that we are born of the substance of the stars and glory of God. We're looking for the lost wisdom, but we're looking in many of the wrong places.

~~Lonni Collins Pratt
Benedict's Way


Then God said: "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years,
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and serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth." And so it happened:
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God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night; and he made the stars.
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God set them in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth,
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to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.

~~Genesis 1:14-18
New American Bible


When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?

Psalm 8:3-4
New King James Version


God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity...that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him. God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is life with God which demands these things...God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things -- unless you want to know God. They work on you, not on him.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

~~Annie Dillard
Teaching a Stone to Talk