The Small Things

On Monday evening, I had an appointment to keep at 7pm in the Wichita downtown area.  I left the house at about 6:30 pm.  As I accelerated on the on-ramp of eastbound Kellogg at Maize Road on that Monday evening, I looked ahead on the road as I approached Kellogg and saw directly in front of me, right over the roadway, a huge yellow circle hanging in the sky just above the road and just above the horizon.

It took me a minute or so to figure out what that thing was that was hanging there amidst all of the lights of the city, but I finally decided it was the full moon (actually, I think it was a day or so past full, but it sure looked full to me).  I merged into traffic, reluctant to take my eyes off of the sight of an apparently larger moon hovering near the horizon.  I continued to look at it until Kellogg changed directions slightly at Tyler and the moon moved over to the left and got lost in the maze of buildings and lights.

It has been awhile since I have been so mesmerized by the moon, or by any celestial body, for that matter.  The transit of Venus across the sun came a few years ago, and that was cool to watch.  Eclipses are always good to see, and there is occasionally a comet that is visible to the eye.  (There is one in the sky now that is supposed to get brighter over the next few weeks.)  The breakup of comet Shoemaker-Levy and the crashing of the pieces into Jupiter was one of the highlights of sky-viewing…that event was captured by the Galileo spacecraft and by the Hubble and other terrestrial telescopes and measuring devices.

Sometimes it is the small things…a full moon just having risen from the horizon…that set our minds to thinking and considering where we are and why we are here.  We begin to, if only for a moment, sense the presence of a Creator and Sustainer.  And we are thankful for the moment in time that all too quickly passes, never to come again.