Carla’s recent sermon on prayer mentioned the stunning images that are being sent back from the James Webb telescope. I often wake in that space between night and morning. As I wait for sleep to return, I will pull a book of poems from my bedside table or I’ll get up and ramble through myriad websites. One of those is NASA’s “image of the day”, (I recommend you visit the site), where years ago a photo of a galaxy from the Hubble telescope caught my attention. It inspired this poem…
Equilibrium In my day I give away too much of myself, to things easily forgotten. I am missing magic. Scanning a portfolio of the night sky when I should be sleeping, I am stopped by an image of a remote galaxy. Such beauty, such a place; a radiant eruption of gas and color in the darkness. An affirmation of faith penned in fire, written before there was this vessel called Earth. It is what God might have imagined when he conceived of light. I am defenseless before such splendor. Something that has not known family, or illness, or effort is out there, In celestial silhouette, it whispers of divine graces. Eternity…patience…solitude… rendered by the humble, busy hand of the God. The realization tears me away from any sense of equilibrium, then holds me statuary still. To see beauty, you must be still... Here, a pair of 300-foot Sequoia trees, on guard in the foothills of California. There, the ring of sarsen stones at Stonehenge, at rest in the countryside of England. And the Pieta, kept in hopeful sanctuary in a corner of Saint Peter's Basilica. At day's end I can step out my door, look into an obsidian sky and am reminded of this... A deep well of beauty is out there, and right here. When we stop to look for it, it pours itself up through bedrock onto the planes of our lives. An artesian flow of things we need, things that might save us- The pure percussion of rain at dawn, the halting effort of a child standing for the first time, a fresh snow tracing the profile of a winter field, the company of a friend sitting in silence beside us. These things are traveling with us and around us, waiting for us to notice. Pay attention.
Craig DeBussey
Craig and Sandy DeBussey are frequent visitors at GPPC; Craig will become a member in the next few weeks. You can find him and his woodwork on occasion at the farmers' market in Bryan Park. Upcoming Saturdays at this writing include August 13, September 10, and October 1.
