It was in looking up that God cascaded down on me tonight.
We live in a sleepy little town in Connecticut...miles of tree-lined sidewalks drawing straight lines in front of quaint 100-year-old colonial houses. All roads lead to the town center - paved in parts with actual cobblestone that looks like something out of a movie set after a post-dusk rain in the summer. It's a pedestrian-friendly town where people are always within walking distance to wherever they need to go. It's Boulder without the patchouli.
There's not a lot happening here. We're stuck in the urban purgatory between Boston and Manhattan and Hartford isn't really what you'd call a metropolis. The lack of city lights is further snuffed out by the incredible amount of New England foliage. The canopy of trees out here, even in the wintertime, muffles most of the embers glowing from an already dim region.
But the cool thing is that the lights in the darkness end up shining that much brighter.
And it was walking home tonight that I found myself staring up at the stars and just getting lost in God.
I mean, really getting lost in him.
I was the only one outside tonight for most of my walk and as I saw this huge expanse of creation unravelling above me, I just felt this immense sense of love from God - which quickly turned into an immense sadness.
Love, because it was as if this night - that moment - all the sights, sounds, smells - were set in place just for me. Just to make me feel God. Just to draw me in. It was absolutely beautiful. It was big. It was art.
And then, my heart broke - because I wondered how many times I walked right through these created moments - these gifts from God - without even noticing.
How many times have I kept my head down, watching nothing but my shuffling feet and thinking of nothing but myself? How many times have I blown by a spectacular sunset trying to get home for a tipoff? Or passed through the fresh, clean air of a new morning with zero acknowledgement of the miracle of daybreak?
And I wonder how God felt as I walked right past him in those moments.
I wonder if he waited with great anticipation - thinking about what my reaction might be...hoping I'll like what he made. Excited to see my smile, or maybe just a deep breath, in response to his love communicated through creation.
I'm a terribly ungrateful kid sometimes.
Why am I like this? I can't be the only one who does this stuff...
I think our problem is boxes.
We live in them. We work in them. We die in them.
We wake up in one every morning, take one to work every day, sit in one until the sun goes down, take another one back home, park in one, eat in one and go to bed in one. We do it again and again and again. There have been days when I would be lucky to get 10 minutes of actual exposure to the world.
And without any outside exposure, we lose our wonder. We stop seeing the beauty of creation. We get bigger and God gets smaller...until he only exists in theory - if at all.
But the cool thing is that this numbness is broken once you just get outside and look at the stars. When you lift your eyes and look up. When you stop rushing around from one thing to another in a box. You start to see God and feel his love given through those moments he made just for you.
I felt that tonight. And within that moment a funny thing happened. The way I thought about everything started to change.
All the stuff that sucked moments before all of a sudden became beautiful.
The whole concept of snow and ice became an incomprehensible miracle to me. The temperature made me acknowledge more fully the sensory response by my body to the cold. And feeling the frigid air sucked into my lungs made me consider the miracle that is the human body.
Breathe deep. Feel your heart beat. Look at the moon.
Now tell me there's no God...
So if you've got some clear skies tonight, take a minute...go outside...and look up at the stars. Soak it in, then close your eyes and let the cascade of God's love shower down all over and around you.
