Awestruck

Last night we bedded down on the pier to visually comb the sky for Perseids meteors during the hour before midnight.  Blue foam mats (usually for swimming) worked well as beds, and beach towels sufficed as blankets until we got too cold in the damp night air and supplemented with pillows and a quilt. 

The breathtaking, starry view seemed to inspire reverence, even as insistent clouds intermittently covered various segments of the sky.  We saw several small meteors and one incredibly long, fast one that breathed a gasp of splendor as it fell: a spectacular reward for our patience.

While feeling so small in the vast context of space, a couple of simple but profound thoughts surfaced, and I spoke them out loud.

“You know, here we are – very much alive!”  We might both have already passed away.  In 1996, my brush with cancer could have had a different ending.  In 2002, his prognosis due to heart muscle degeneration suggested a statistical life expectancy of 3 to 5 years.  

“And we’re here on our own pier.  At our own lake!” We’d grown up and courted on water, raised our kids to also love the water, and hoped to end up living beside water – although over the years we weren’t sure that would happen. But it had.

We were among the living, stretched above calm waters and beneath countless heavenly bodies declaring the glory of God.  Alive.  Grateful.  Awestruck.