The Harried Mystic

This is among my very favorite Christmas Carols along with ” How a rose er blooming” and the ” Watchman”.

As an amateur astronomer in the northeast for now over 40 years, I await Advent and Christmas with genuine excitement as it is the time of clearest skies. Stars are more brilliant absent the haze notable in other Seasons, especially summer.

Through the lens of the telescope, I travel back in time and ” I wonder as I wander” the great expanse of the heavens. Stars seemingly shine brighter and the deep space treasures, such as the Great Nebula in Orion and the Pleiades, are brilliantly expressive.

Astronomy as prayer is a powerful practice. The science causes us to see more deeply and truly and with ever greater sense of wonder. I think to myself: “The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the Earth keep silent.”

A dark night alone in a field with a telescope and a star chart is the epitome of silent space; a timeless moment of imagination, observation, gratitude and humility. One need only the naked eye, in fact, to stand beneath the canopy of stars and marvel.

Emptying myself of all other thoughts, there is nothing but the watching and the waiting and the amazing realization that in the looking I am being seen. In the loving, I am being loved. In my reaching out to infinity beyond me, another infinity is opening within me.

We are the stuff of stars so, in the final analysis, we are gazing inward anyway.

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