Starry Skies

Ever since I was a little girl, there's been something a little spooky about the night sky. I've always been in awe of the vastness of the universe, the stars too numerous to count, the beauty of the moon, and the overall notion of infinity.

One of my first recollections of a starry night is one of a Camp Fire Girl camp out. Our group from Winnona Park Elementary School spent the night at Fernbank Forest, a nature preserve between Decatur and Atlanta. After we built a fire, prepared our dinner of Camp Fire Stew cooked on the open fire, ate it up and then feasted on marshmallows toasted over the dying coals for dessert, we unrolled our bedrolls in a small clearing to spend the night under the stars. I remember lying there in the dark night gazing up into the heavens, and for the first time in my life contemplated eternity. The sky was magnificent, the stars twinkling against the black velvet backdrop of space. I was completely and totally overwhelmed with what I was observing, and then engulfed by an indescribable fear. I didn't know what I was afraid of - perhaps it was the immensity of the entire experience of feeling so very small in a universe that I couldn't comprehend or fathom. I pulled the covers up over my face and didn't peek out again until sunlight filtered through my blankets announcing a new day.

Now that I am older and possess more knowledge about the universe, light years, super novas, galaxies, an expanding universe, and so much more, I still have a little of my old childhood "spookies" when I look up at the night sky. I am in awe of creation and the unending nature of the universe. And although it is absolutely breathtaking, I still feel a twinge of that long-ago little girl fear.

I am so small and the sky is so large.