Pastor’s Blog – January 2011

At the end of this week I will be spending a few days in Thornton, New Hampshire, a rural community just west of Waterville Valley. It is a great place to kick back after a busy advent season, especially if you enjoy being outdoors in winter, which I do. A quality down jacket serves as the great equalizer for outdoor activities, you know.

As most have discovered by now, one of the wonderful treats that accompanies rural evenings is the brilliance of a star-speckled sky. And it seems that the farther north one travels, the more crowded the night sky becomes. Of course, much of the visual perspective is due to the lack of artificial light that would normally, in the more populated areas, interfere with the view. That which is created to help us see down here on earth competes with and often cancels out our vision of the starry heavens. In the midst of city lights we are not often prone to gaze heaven-ward to admire the celestial beauty.

Of course, there was a time when these stars served as maps and travel signs for those journeying by land and sea. Now, our street lights, well lit signs and traffic signals, airport beacons, and the like serve as our guides. We often can go days and weeks without a glimpse of the majesty set before us since the beginning of time. We often can go for periods of time without that healthy dose of awe that stirs our spirits, which puts the glory and vastness of out God into perspective, and prompts us to recall the words of the psalmist,

When I consider your heavens, the work of your finger,
The moon and the stars which you have set in place,
What is man that you are mindful of him…?”

I am praying that, in the coming year, each of us better learns to find places in our lives where the flash and noise and other competing elements of life as we know it are put aside periodically, that our souls may be tended to, healed and inspired by the evidences of God’s glory. It is at these times of holy awareness that we can best marvel at the reality that this God of wonders came to us in the manger, became Emmanuel – God with us – and still offers his presence for our earthly journeys.

Blessings in the Coming Year,
Pastor John