The Good of Your Stars
As an amateur astronomer, there’s something to be said about the stars. They’re a magnificent clock. To this day, they remain the lesser lights in the expanse of the sky. & along with greater lights, they’ve upheld their role to be for signs & for seasons, for days, & for years. I like to think they personify humans & our experience in a way. Or perhaps they are just one big metaphor. We aren’t alike. But surely we have something in common.
Here it is. My simplest of reasons & love for the stars, guaranteed to make you consider yourself numbered among them.
perfect. balance.
Although I very much like the word perfect & dislike the word balance, the combination yet again makes its maddening point. Like I too often find myself, stars are in a constant conflict or battle with themselves. The gravity of a star pulls it inward. At the same time, the pressure of burning gas pushes back.
It’s a “process”. (Let’s chat more about this word another day.) For now, I think it goes a little something like this: The outside crushes inward. The insides heat. Pressure pushes back. The lightweight & the heavy combine. Their cores release energy. The star reaches its surface to fully become itself. It shines.
“We’re here for the gravity and the levity, the heavy and light. Without one, there is no balance. But without both? There is no weight.”
— ERIN LOECHNER SAID THIS.
oh my stars.
I have heard there are 200-400 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. I have also read there could be as many as 500 billion galaxies in the Universe. & Those galaxies perhaps could have just as many or more. Try to calculate that & let’s just say whatever we decide to call it is an understatement. There are that many up there & not a single one is missing.
Stars put me in my place. They make me look up. They make me feel small. & somehow, I consider myself numbered among them. There is One who calls my name, lives within me, walks beside me, & dares me to dream beyond myself.
“The sense of mystery must always be, for mystery means being guided by obedience to Someone Who knows more than I do.”
— OSWALD CHAMBERS SAID THIS.
look up.
In order to see the stars, I have to look up. & sometimes in doing so, I can’t help but recognize the time that has past.
Being the smart gal you are, you most likely have heard this before! It takes MANY years for the light of stars to reach Earth. Looking at the stars is in fact looking back in time. The star you see today is naturally & literally old as dirt. We are talking OLD, friends.
& While we may not be as old, I believe we are a combination of our past too. Past choices & past experiences. Do they define us. No. Do they make us worth acknowledging? Yes. Noticing? Absolutely.
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...”
— GEORGE LUCAS SAID THIS.
gravity.
Thanks to good ole’ Galileo, we know planets revolve around stars. But did you know that stars can revolve around stars?
When you look up at night, it appears they’re out there all alone. Flying solo. In reality, the majority of stars we see come in pairs. They orbit a common center of gravity; together. & As a result, they are bound to orbit around each other.
If a wide pair, they circle each other from a distance. But a close pair of stars’ circle near enough they can transfer matter to each other. Near, far, wherever you are, there is a positional truth. Yes? We have a common center of gravity that ties us together. & I am stubbornly confident that He holds everything together by the Word of his immovable power.
“What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?”
— E.M. FORSTER SAID THIS.