The Heavens Declare

We had a Helen Keller moment this week.

It started, as so many things do, with me remembering that I had forgotten something … which sounds kind of oxymoronish. While I was gardening earlier in the evening, Dave had lit three of the tiki torches out on the patio earlier to keep me from being consumed alive by mosquitoes, and hours and hours later they came to mind, and I wondered if we had forgotten to blow them out. Glancing out the living room window, I saw that we had.

“Gage, want to go help Grandma blow out the lights?” He did. Just one of the many, many, too-many-to-count things that I love about my grandson: he’s always up for an adventure.

I picked him up and we went out to the far corner of my herb garden, where the still flickering torches were presumably still chasing away the mosquitoes. “Let’s count to three and then we’ll blow them out.”

He enjoyed blowing out those three torches so much that I almost relit them all so we could do it again, but then I thought better of it. We might still be out there.

Turning to go back in the house, I caught sight of the moon, hanging like a big, bright saucer in between the evergreens to the south of our house. It was gigantic. But no matter how many times I said, “Gage, see the moon? Look at Grandma’s finger. Look where I’m pointing,” I couldn’t get a reaction out of the unimpressed him.

So we went back inside. And it just happened that about twenty seconds later, one of the Sweet Potatoes (on the Micky Mouse show we had taped for him earlier in the day) began singing a sweet little song … while standing under a big, bright moon.

“Gage! Look … moon!”

He looked. His eyes got big. He gasped. “Moon!” He turned his head quickly and glanced over my shoulder at the back door we had just come through. “Moon!”

“Yes! Moon!” I said. “Moon!”

Still holding him, I dashed us back out the back door, where we gaped together at the real thing. Suddenly, I was Anne Sullivan, holding Helen Keller’s hand under the running water and signing the letters for water on her palm.

“Moon!” I said.

“Moon!” Gage said.

It was a moment. And at his insistence, we’ve gone back out every single night since last Thursday, hoping to see our moon again. I sure hope it cooperates soon.

I’m so thankful for the moon … and the stars … and every other silent, beautiful testament to the Creator. My heart breaks a little for those who deny Him. They’re missing out on so much. They’re missing the chance to say “thank You,” and the chance to worship. For me, I don’t think I could live if I didn’t stand quietly once in awhile, with my head tilted back and my eyes trained on the heavens, and my heart lurching just a bit in wonder at the knowledge that I’m seen, and loved.

While teaching a women’s retreat several years ago, I wanted to give the women a visual illustration to go with this truth: God is there, and He is not silent. As we read in The Message’s paraphrase of Psalm 19,

God’s glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon. Madame Day holds classes every morning, Professor Night lectures each evening. Their words aren’t heard, their voices aren’t recorded, but their silence fills the earth: unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.

Message received.

Moon photo: Photo and caption by GERRY LYNN CAMPANICKI