Looking Up

My friend keeps inviting me to the lake. Her family has a house there. She says “You need to get out of yourself and look up at the stars.” I smile and tell her I’m a city boy and that we’ve got stars, too. She says it’s not the same.

The truth is I do look down a lot. Computer, watch, phone, day-timer, shoes, mail, newspaper, stomach. I look down into my dreams, and even deeper into my private world of wonders.

As you can see, looking up is not a major part of my routine.

So we went to the lake house. I was prepared for mosquitoes and poison ivy. I packed protection.

We went out on the deck as the sun was going down. The orange ball in the lake. The trees on fire. Words are too small.

We sat under the moon and the stars. She drank a glass of wine. I smoked a cigar. A thousand stars in the sky. Love is in the air. The answer is blowing in the wind. Starry, Starry Night. (And any other “outdoor” songs you can think of, except “Kum Ba Yah.”)

In the Tom Hank’s movie, “Joe vs. the Volcano,” his ship sinks and he ends up on a raft in the middle of the ocean. He runs out of drinking water. The sun cooks his skin, then his brain, and when night comes he looks up and starts seeing things. He sees a sky full of stars dancing over his head. A moment later, the moon comes up huge on the horizon and joins the dance.

He struggles to his feet, spreads his arms and prays, “O God, whose name I do not know. I forgot how big you are. Thank you for my life.”

Indeed!