Up There

I stepped outside this morning and was struck by how many stars I could see.  Usually, it's hard to see the stars at night because of the ambient light from the city.  I've noticed that the stars seem brighter in the early morning.  I don't know if this is because of a change in ambient light or if the earth has turned toward brighter objects by this time.  At four-thirty this morning the sky over my house was clear and there were many stars visible.  I paused to take it in before continuing on with the start of my day.  I didn't get outside again until six o'clock.  By then, the stars were mostly gone.

The stars this morning were lovely and it seemed like there were a lot of them but I know I wasn't getting the whole picture.  I remember looking up at the clear night sky on the farm when I was young.  It was a lot darker on the farm and the sky was absolutely teeming with lights, some so small and numerous that together they almost looked like clouds.  The stars weren't just overhead but off to every horizon.  This morning, as I looked at the sky, I looked at the stars "up there".  On the farm, the heavens seemed to come down and wrap themselves around the earth.  There was no "up there", the stars were everywhere.

I suppose some might look at the full night sky and find reason to feel small or insignificant.  I never did.  I looked up at our massive, incredible universe with the realization that I was a part of it.  Nothing small or insignificant about that.