New View

For my birthday this week, my husband and kids gave me a pair of binoculars.

A little backstory:

I grew up sleeping out under the stars on our back lawn of my parents' farm. I was familiar with the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, Orion. The regularity of the movement around Polaris. I loved it as a girl, and I missed it during times when I lived in cities like Tokyo and Washington and the light pollution kept me from seeing the sky.

Many years ago, a family friend handed me his binoculars one night while Gary and I were standing in his yard. He helped me aim them at Jupiter. There--with my own eyes--I could see Jupiter's moons! Not all of them--aren't there 30 or something?--but the Galilean moons, so four or so.

I have thought of that moment countless times.

Between the ages of 36 and 45 I ran six mornings a week. Had to quit due to a bum knee, and now I bike or lift weights instead. I miss it so much! Not the running. I never once got it about a runner's high. Pretty sure it's a myth.

No, the thing I miss dearly is the experience of watching the full moon set at 5:45 a.m. behind our mountain each month, seeing its phases' progress, and just letting my soul experience nature as the moon disappears behind the horizon.

I could still go watch it, but I don't. It's my own choice, I know this.

However... the binoculars!

My birthday was Thursday. The full moon was Friday, date night. We took the binoculars and went to the duck ponds at about 6:00 and waited as the sky on the dark horizon went from charcoal to light gray, to brilliant yellow-orange as the moon crested. (There are fires in a neighboring state changing the color of all sunsets and sunrises.)

But this time, I was watching through the binoculars. And it didn't look like I expected or had seen it look so many hundreds of times in the past. It's not easy to describe, but I did burst out with, "Gary! It's bumpy!" The craters and topography were clearly visible, and stunning. And it didn't seem round, at least definitely not a smooth surface anywhere.

The experience struck me. We traded turns with the binoculars, going back and forth, making comments as to our surprise and delight.

It was a spiritual experience. A lot of analogies could be drawn--like a closer look gives us a better understanding of people, or being in focus, or that kind of thing. But the thing I took from it was that God created something incredibly beautiful, and even MORE beautiful than I had previously known. And I had the blessing and opportunity to see it.

Then we turned our eyes to other places in the sky. Using a phone app, we located Mars, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and looked at all of them through the telescopic lenses.

I. Saw. Neptune.

I never once dreamed that would be something I could do. Maybe that's just not a very big deal to other people, but for me, it felt like this huge gift. A day I wouldn't forget.

The next night, we took our kids on a night hike after 5:15 sunset and before the 7:10 moonrise. We sat on top of a desert mesa. I couldn't imagine not sharing the experience with them. It was sweet and fun and exciting and amazing to see it together.

Jupiter set with the sun. This is the wrong time of year to see its moons, even with the binoculars. But maybe I'll be able to.

Whether it makes me feel like a tiny nothing, or like I'm a small part of something incredibly vast--I'm thankful for God's incredible creation and in awe at his mastery of all things large and small.