God] is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted (Job 9:9-10)
Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? ( Job 38:31-31),
One of the many negative aspects of modern urban living is that we are not exposed to the stars night after night. What a misfortune it is that the lights of the night we see from Los Angeles to Tokyo to Sydney to Frankfort to London are flashing Coke and Sony signs and MacDonald’s golden arches. Our children can name dozens of commercial products by their lighted signs before they can even read, but my guess is that not one in a hundred could find the constellations Orion or the Pleiades, let alone give them a name. Indeed, how many adults could identify the Pleiades if exposed to a night sky dark enough to actually see that striking cluster of stars? [In fact, my spell checker couldn't even find it!]
Pleiades
How many know the stars called “the Bear and its cubs”? In Latin their names are Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, meaning Great Bear and Little Bear and are commonly referred to as the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. And how many know that the brightest star in the Little Dipper is named Polaris—the Pole Star or the North Star—because it is almost directly above the North Pole and has served for millennia as the most important navigational light in the Northern Hemisphere?
Even as near in time as the mid-twentieth century, the majority of people in North America could see most visible stars on a clear night. On a midsummer’s night the kids in my neighborhood would, like thousands of kids around the country, lie on our backs and chant in unison, “Star light, star bright/The first star I see tonight;/I wish I may, I wish I might,/Have the wish I wish tonight.” And in our young souls, we would silently ponder deep thoughts about the wonders of the heavens and God.
Living in light-polluted Grand Rapids with cloud cover well over 40% of our days, I seldom see the Milky Way, and I miss it. What’s truly sad to me, however, is that most children these days don’t even know what the Milky Way is and are almost stunned when they happen to be exposed to it the first few times. Contrast that with the awe-inspiring aspect children experienced almost every cloudless night before the Industrial Revolution and global urbanization.
Milky Way from Death Valley
Our souls need the stars. We need to be reminded of the vastness of the cosmos and the smallness of Earth. We need them to show us the greatness of our Creator. When we see how grand the universe is, as Job and his “comforters” did, and realize that we are as dust—yet so loved by the Creator/Savior that He chose to walk the earth with us, we cannot cease but to be humbled by the One who “performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.”
[He]did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-7 NASB).
[Tokyo MacDonald's sign source: nickburcher]
[Star photos from Wikipedia]
February 3rd, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Street light, tail light, first beam of a headlight I see tonight, I wish…. (something wrong here!)
This is such a great post. One of the joys of being a Boy Scout leader is taking our troop on a wilderness camping trip where the only lights at night (with the exception of flashlights and campfires) were put there by our Creator. Sitting in the darkness, telling stories, and looking at the stars. That will beat a night of a TV anytime!
We even learn to find direction by the North Star you mentioned. Once you find the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) and draw that line from the front of the cup to the tail of the Little Dipper, you’ve got your North Star and it always points north. Amazing. Is that not a blessing from our God to give us a point in the heavens from which ocean vessels, airplanes, and hikers can get their bearings at night?
I posted back in Dec. 7 this comment about President Theodore Roosevelt: Teddy Roosevelt believed the Bible account, and William Beebe said he and the president would be gazing at the night sky when the Rough Rider would comment that they were now small enough that they could go to bed!
There really is something fascinating and marvelous and humbling about the heavens, especially at night. Maybe TR had Psalm 8 in mind as he gazed at the stars: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
Can’t wait for the next campout!
February 4th, 2010 at 9:23 am
In the early 60′s my dad and I used to walk for 3 to 4 hours with backpacks on to remote lake. We would camp there for 3 or 4 days and nights. I have many stories about those adventures.
But as to the stars.On one camping trip as my dad and I lay looking up into the night sky, we found a “star” that was moving. It continued to move across the night sky as we watched it off the horizon. To our amazement, in due time it showed back up and made it’s pathway across the night sky again. Now, since it had our attention, we tracked it as it made repeated trips accross the starlit sky. We had found a satellite in it’s orbit.
Things have greatly changed since then. A satellite seen amongst the stars is harder to see because the sky has gotten very busy. As well as the interference of artificial light even here atop the Alleghenies.
The best view of the night sky, I ever experianced was while in the Marine Corps on board ship in the middle of the ocean, at night. What a sight.
No wonder the night sky got so much attention by our early ancestors.
Steve
February 4th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Watched a very interesting program some time ago about the finding of a “disk” buried in the forrest of Germany. The disk was made of copper and bronze and Gold.
On the disk were symbols. The sun, the moon, the constellation of pleiades, and a boat. An almost exact grouping of such symbols are seen in Egyptian writings. But the disc was proven to be of European origin.
The Pleiades were seen as the time for planting, Just as God said in Genesis. The stars are to mark the seasons… though the accepted belief concerning the boat in Egyptian mythology is about the sun and it’s course accross the sky. I was struck by the idea that all of the ancestors of both the Egyptian and the European came from a boat that landed atop Mt Ararat.
Steve
February 4th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Steve, I found an article about this on the BBC news site:
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6722953.stm“>
February 4th, 2010 at 11:44 am
On the clear nights in summer, when I can see the stars, I will sometimes lie in a hammock and look for satellites. I find the majority of them going from south to north. Folks can go to this visual satellite tracking site for assistance:
http://www.satobs.org/satintro.html
February 4th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Great comments, Bob. Please tell me that the stars are still out there! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the evidence.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Interesting fact: the Japanese word “Subaru” means “Pleiades” and the stars on the car-maker’s emblem represent that well-known star cluster.
February 4th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Dean, thanks for the link. That is the same artifact and argument.
I am always amused at the sharp differences between experts when an object they can’t explain or ignore surfaces.
The very account you give in your comments about Subaru, adds to my thoughts concerning our common ancestors finding importance in the same celestial observations.
I have also read and seen where the pyramids of Egypt were grouped to copy constellations and align with them.
Watched last evening about the Incan city of Machu Picchu, being built with heavenly alignments and purpose. By a people who had no written record or alphabet.
It would seem that in the small-minded busy world we live in, we have forgotten much.
Steve
February 4th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I call that “pride of the present.” The living generation always seems to believe that the generations before were hopelessly backward.
I too saw the impressive conjecture about the location of the Egyptian pyramids seeming to match the layout of the constellation Orion.
That the German disk had a calendar function certainly seems plausible, especially since there are seven stars in the one cluster–seven being the sum of stars the ancients gave to the Pleiades (even though that number is totally arbitrary since there are more stars that could be counted as part of the constellation.) One thing is certain to me: they sure were a lot smarter than I am in knowing how to navigate and use the stars for calendar purposes. I use my GPS unit or Google Earth. Even found your place, Steve!
February 5th, 2010 at 11:43 am
In WWII, Dad’s destroyer was seriouly damaged by a kamikaze impact. The officers navigated the ship all the way from the Phillipines to San Francisco using the stars.
In the ’60′s, the folks bought beach property a half hour drive from home. Dad taught us kids the major stars and constellations at that time. The Milky Way was then brightly visible. I could always find Cassiopeia, the lazy W by looking above the neighbor’s beach cabin.
Now that old country road is home to housing developments, a grade school, and gas station/food-marts – suburbia. To really see the stars, it takes at least a two hour drive to the Olympic Peninsula or the Cascade Mountains.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
I don’t think we really understand how this sort of loss of intimacy with God’s cosmos is diminishing us. I have a real sense of sadness about that. My brother was a navigator on a P2V Neptune during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961. Your dad would have known that plane, since the one my brother flew in was made in 1945. He too had to learn first how to navigate by the stars before he learned the electronic version. Now, he says, he’s forgotten most of that. They live on Orcas Island during the warmer half of the year, and the way the wind currents come up over the island in the warmer air also tends to make moisture in the air occlude their view of the stars. It’s hard to beat the high mountain or desert views of the stars.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:13 am
Wonderful, beautiful post. Yes, I miss the stars. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a outdoor light turn off across the city on a clear summer night. Well, it would help too if we had less air pollution. Anyhow we are impoverished in missing the stars, and the sense of the awesomeness and majesty of their Creator.