Lessons in Gratitude Day 593

Last night as I was driving home from work I was startled by a remarkable sight. I had just reached a  “breakaway” on the highway, that place where the traffic finally starts moving again after having been bogged down in gridlock. I came around the corner and up a slight rise and there it was: an enormous round orange-colored disc of the full moon. For half a second my mind couldn’t really comprehend what I was seeing, and I caught my breath with a slight gasp of surprise. It was simply too beautiful for words. As I drove on I lost sight of it a few times, it winking out between the trees and behind hills. And it was as if I was the only car on the road: me, the road, and the moon, racing along playing hide and seek with one another. When I got home I drove on past my house seeking a place where I could see the moon unimpeded by bright lights and utility wires. Eventually, I turned around and headed back to the house, grabbed my camera, leashed the dog and headed outside. As we took our usual turns about the yard, I took several pictures of the moon. It had turned a creamy white now, having grown smaller and losing the orange sherbet tint it had it had first arisen, but she was still a thing of beauty. And I found myself bathed in a sense of wonder even as I basked in the bright light of the moon as it rose higher in the evening sky.

I am grateful for the sense of wonder that I still have upon seeing the moon and watching the stars and planets parade across the night sky. I find myself in agreement with the psalmist who wrote (I paraphrase here) “when I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars you (God) have created, I wonder what are humans that you even think about us?” I must confess that I wax a bit poetic when I witness natural phenomena–particularly of the celestial variety. As a child I thought I might become an astronomer, but never had a telescope. And while I was definitely a stargazer and loved everything to do with the planets and stars and space, I never actually got around to studying astronomy. And that’s fine. I was probably not meant to study it, but to merely wonder at the beauty and mystery and vastness of the cosmos and to imagine and read and write science fiction about life beyond planet Earth.

I think a lot about the world around me–the natural world, the one that was here long before humans first evolved our way into a conscious presence on the planet. I look up at the moon and stars and planets and wonder what the earliest humans thought as they looked at these same heavenly bodies, what stories they told, what sense they made of it all. And even with all we think we know about the solar system, about what lives deep below the sea or in the midst of the jungles and forests, about the systems and structures of the human body, and all the other mysteries, the tiny bit we know is far outstretched by all that we don’t and can’t comprehend. And that is a wonderful thing.

I am grateful for having a sense of wonder; I think most of us have it, that sense of awe that sometimes overwhelms us, robbing us of speech. I think it will be part of me forever, and I’m glad about that. It is one of those qualities I hope will always remain with me, part of my being human and recognizing that there is so much around me that is larger than myself. May we all view a portion of the world around us with a sense of awe and wonder at its magnificence. So be it!