The Stars Make Sense

Have you ever looked up into the night sky and seen stars? I'm not a true star-gazer. I usually happen to look up because I am thinking or perhaps just to take a moment. I can make out the North Star, the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. I can usually pick out Venus (that is the one right next to the moon?) and, of course, the moon. And if I'm lucky, I can catch a shooting star or a meteor shower.

How amazing, the night sky. But have you ever looked up and seen no stars? Not because of cloud cover, but just because there was too much light?
Living in a city, I know that the further out of town I go, the more stars I am able to see. That is only because there is less and less artificial light to interfere with the celestial light. And when I am up in the mountains, the darkness really brings out the brightness of the stars.
But there was one night that puts all others to shame. I have not seen another night like it before or since.

I was in Tuba City Arizona three years ago for a short term mission trip. Tuba City is on the Navaho Indian Reservation. That is smack-dab in the middle of nowhere.
On one of the last nights in Tuba City, there was a city-wide power outage. No light for 50 miles. Now it was late, and the only reason I actually came out of the bunk-house was because the air conditioner went off. As I stepped out the front door onto the sidewalk, I was confronted with a truly awesome sight.

Stars. Not just stars, but millions upon millions of stars. And galaxies. And I don't even know what else I could see there, but it was magnificent.
And I wasn't the only one standing in the desert night air with my head hanging back and my mouth hanging open. There we stood, for how long I don't know. But when the power came back on, and there were lights again, the galaxies dissappeard. The millions upon million of stars just became the few that I am used to seeing. The North Star, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper.

Now, they really didn't dissappear. They are still there. The difference, I am realizing, is the light. When there is light from sources other than the heavens, it diminishes my view. But when my only light is from the heavens, then I can see all that the heavens have to offer.

My pondering question. Do I do that in my spiritual life, my Christian walk?
Do I allow other artificial "lights" to interfere and cloud my vision of what spiritual things are going on around me?

I know that there have been occasions where I have extinguished all other "lights" in my life and allowed the Light of God to be my only source.

Wow, what a difference. What an awesome, and sometimes scary gift, this Light of God. It is truly amazing what I can see when I use God's light instead of my own.

Yet, the things that I see with God's light? They are always there. They have always been there. Whether I use my light or God's light doesn't change that. What changes is my ability to see, and my appreciation of what is there. I think I will choose to practice using God's light instead of my own. My light doesn't shine near as bright as God's.

What an incredible gift, to see with the Light of God.

Femininity

Femininity.

What IS femininity?

The very word emits visions of coy smiles, flowing tresses, billowing skirts and fluttering eyelashes. This is a word that I have been wholy unfamiliar with. Not that I haven't, on rare occasion and failed miserably, attempted to assume that very image.

Oh, how I wish that I could snap my fingers and be transformed into the stunning princess who causes the rise or fall of princes, paupers, villians, or kings.

Women have used their femininity for both good and evil throughout history.

Biblically and historically speaking, women have used their femininity through the ages to cause nations to fall or help save entire peoples from extinction. They have used it to cause the death of great men, and weaken the strong. To stand ready in battle, or risk their own lives to help save others.

Yet, this still does not answer the question, What IS femininity?

Is it a super secret power? A special tool? An invisible force?
Femininity can be seen. It can be felt.
So yes, it IS a power. It IS a tool. And it IS a force.

I grew up a tomboy. I played in trees and shot BB guns. I ran around in orchards and caught grasshoppers.
I wore toughskin jeans and sweatshirts. My hair was always short, My face was always red and sweaty and dirty.

And I know grown women who could pull off every single one of these things...and never lose touch with their femininity.

I am coming to find that femininity is not a how or a who. It is a what.

I said earlier that I had attempted to assume the image of femininity. I now realize that I have been approaching this incorrectly. Femininity is not an image. I have taken the qualities that I have attributed to femininity and superimposed them onto a frame. I have cut and pasted them into a picture of a woman. I am, and have always been, wrong.

Femininity is an attitude.

It is from the deepest recesses of the heart. It seeps through the pores and scents the air with a fragrance of all things woman. It is strength, weakness, power, humility, discipline, love. It is happiness, sadness, anger and joy.
It is hope and peace and assurance.

I have, at last, caught a glimpse of myself all-together feminine, and I like what I saw.

Why?

Why?
Why am I not an alcoholic sitting on a bar stool every night begging for a drink in a drunken stupor?
Why am I not a burned-out pot-head zoning in someone's living room whom I don't even know scraping together what I can to buy my next ounce.
Why am I not sitting on an oxygen machine while I pick a half-smoked cigarette butt out of an overfull ashtray?
Why am I not sitting in a jail cell for theft of an item that I really didn't need?
Why am I not crying in an alley about the man who refused to take me home-or did?
Why am I not regretting every single day of my life because I made some stupid split-second mistake that could have cost someone else their's?
Why?
Why was I spared?
Why is my path so different than the one I started out on?
Why does it seem that others are so comfortable staying on that path?
Why can't they see what I see?
Why do I always seem to land on my feet when my sister and brother don't?
Why?
Why am I so concerned about things that aren't eternal?
Why do I get nervous about things that don't matter?
Why am I afraid to let myself get hurt?
Why am I afraid to love anyone?