HUMAN BEINGS HAVE EXPLORED every place on the planet: the forests, the mountains over and under water. The new frontier is outer space. And I get my own lovely window into that frontier about 3 A.M. each morning when Lorette, Lovey and Layla, my three rescue girl-dogs need to go out. I don't mind, even in the winter; while they're taking care of business I get to see the stars and planets through the bare trees.
My science-teacher friend told me that the stars of the winter sky are brighter because there is less humidity to diffuse the star's light. And in the winter time our planet is tilted towards the edge of the Milky Way galaxy with more dark behind the stars making them brighter. The folks who settled in this very rural area aptly named the place Starlight!
I think of the reading of the Prophet Baruch on Easter Night:
Who has found the place of wisdom,
who has entered into her treasuries?
He who knows all things knows her;
he has probed her by his knowledge -
He who established the earth for all time,
and filled it with four-footed beasts;
He who dismisses the light, and it departs,
calls it, and it obeys him trembling;
Before whom the stars at their posts
shine and rejoice;
When he calls them, they answer,
"Here we are!"
shining with joy for their Maker.
So outer space is the new frontier. And as soon as regular space travel is available there'll be people eager to pay thousands of dollars to take their own trip into that new frontier. But do we know that going beyond and into the new frontier is all the more an inner journey?
The frontier or going beyond into consciously knowing myself.
The frontier of exploring where I personally need inner healing and repair.
The frontier or going beyond where I've stopped evolving or growing.
The frontier of realizing a long held dream or exploring a gift or inner creative place.
The frontier of going beyond my earth-self.
The beyond of growing a committed relationship - the stretch of love.
The beyond of new thinking for myself.
The beyond of making God's view of justice my own.
The frontier or beyond of my tiny view of Christianity as sexual ethic and being nice.
The frontier or beyond of letting God be God.
The frontier or beyond of understanding who is my brother, who is my sister on this planet?
Going beyond my resentments.
Going beyond tired, forever-rehearsed-knee-jerk opinions.
Going beyond what I think I need to be happy.
Going beyond the hate that is oozing out of our country of late.
Does not God live high in the heavens
does God not see the zenith of the stars?
This verse from the book of Job (22:12) isn't about astronomy, but about God encountered in the zenith of my inner life.
