The stars are all my friends
Till the nighttime ends
So I know I'm not alone
When I'm here on my own
Isn't that a wonder: when you're alone
You're not alone, not really alone.
Leslie Bricusse (with John Williams), "When You're Alone"
When I'm out walking at night, usually to or from my car, I find myself almost instinctively turning my face up to look at the stars. I look for my favorite constellations of the season
—the Big Dipper in summer, Orion in winter. Somehow seeing these brings me comfort, like I have a friend in the night sky, and I feel at home under it.
The Big Dipper, I think, was the first constellation I recognized. It took me years—until I had to teach stargazing to a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls at Girls Camp one summer—to find it. Before that I would pretend I saw it, nodding my head like I was sure which stars everyone was pointing at. A few times I thought maybe those stars were it, but I was afraid that I'd chosen the wrong stars; I wanted to be certain I was seeing the same dipper everyone else saw. It was frustrating after awhile, and I told myself it was stupid to look for one particular dipper when I bet you could find a million of them all over the sky. How rare could that arrangement of stars actually be? Maybe people just picked out their own version of the Big Dipper and pretended like it was the same one for everyone.
Like I said, it wasn't until I had to help a group of younger girls find the Big Dipper that I found it myself. I went out into the middle of the cul-de-sac of my home a few times that summer before camp, trying to find it so I'd be prepared for the stargazing class. I had to learn more about it, which part of the sky it would be in at which time of night, and I enlisted the aid of my dad and my brother, who was interested in astronomy at the time, to patiently point it out by its brightness, orientation, and the stars around it. One night I finally found it on my own. It was wonderful! I finally saw with certainty what all those other people were talking about. The more I looked for it and picked it out, the easier it became to find, until it was so clear, it couldn't have been more obvious if there actually were lines between the stars like in the star charts.
Isn't it interesting how even though the same constellations have existed in the sky for who knows how long and observed by humanity for centuries upon centuries, each person still has to find them on their own? No one can see them for you.
There are a lot of similarities between this and something else that also brings joy and comfort to my life, and that is my faith in God. It's easy to scoff and claim that like stars, people are just picking out proof of God to make sense of a vast nothingness, or that people just see what they want to see. But I've found that the more I've looked for God in my life and the more I learn about His ways, the clearer I see Him. I feel certain that I'm looking to the same beacon that many of my ancestors and other faithful Christians in the world's history have followed, and yet it was not something anyone else could find for me. Like my dad and brother helped me find the Big Dipper, I've had a lot of guidance in my faith from my parents and Church leaders, but in the end none of them could see the evidence of God for me; I found it for myself.
When I tilt my head to look at the night sky, I see the stars I know and feel at home. Maybe this is partly because I also know their Maker, who is grander than the sky and every twinkling galaxy but still just as present and as comforting. He is my Maker too, after all, and the Father of my spirit. Seeking Him has brought more clarity and direction in my life than following any star ever would.
