St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

Twenty-one years ago this month, my wife, Allie, and I began our dating relationship on the basis of a shared love for the night sky. The allure for her was more scientific; mine more literary. To this day, that overlap manifests itself in one of our greatest joint fears: being “airlocked” into space. Now, you don’t have to be a nerd like us to feel those outer space heebie-jeebies. When most modern folks look up at the stars, a sort of primal terror enters us. I mean, who would willingly depart the rich womb of our mother earth to be birthed violently into the sterile cold of that unfeeling void? Crazy people, that’s who.  To the ancient mind, however, the night sky was not known as cold, dark, empty space, at all. It was the heavens: radiant, inhabited, and musical; its harmonic activity influencing the everyday life of all the earth below. Psalm 19 is a good reminder of this vision, where “The heavens declared the glory of God… and night to night revealed knowledge.” Sure, there was still fear associated w