In the night’s sky I find the world’s best horizon toward the eternal: imponderable distances, imperturbable powers, nonpareil beauty; hours observing feel like minutes. For months I have planned and prepared to celebrate my 58th birthday with a week under clear, dark, moonless skies photographing a few nebulae and galaxies which have avoided my telescope’s extended gaze hitherto. Moonless is easy, my birthday this year only a day removed from the night’s ruling light being new. Dark requires travel, 12 hours to a Colorado mountain or 9 to Big Bend’s Chihuahua Desert. The travel hinges on the least certain part: clear. Forecasts say desert, so to Big Bend I go. The photo of my enthusiastic preparation and setup belies the miserable (albeit marvelous) meteorological reality I find.
In all the gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration, Peter, with his two discipleship companions, desires to remain on the mountain (“It is good that we are here”) to honor Jesus and his two glorified companions (“Let us make three tents here”). Instead, Jesus leads them back to the crowd waiting and longing in the valley below; down from the transcendence, refusing them occasion to stay and gaze.
Implacable clouds shroud the west Texas heavens; the stars refuse my proffered gaze. The same clouds envelope the landscape around me; the world at my feet invites my attention, both in the beauty to be observed and needs to be met here. When the Lord passes near us, allowing us to worship, placing us in the cleft of scripture, covering us with the hand of his spirit, we are left in awe—hours passing in minutes, as they do when I give myself to a passage in sermon preparation. But 6 days of 7, he obscures the eternal to direct our attention to the world around us—to appreciate, steward, and serve his creation.
To a week longing to see the creator, but gratefully serving him in his creation.