Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home

Earth at Night
More information available at: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”  And there was evening and there was morning – the first day.        Genesis 1:2-5

And five days later, God creates man in His image.  Now, part of God’s image is that He is a creator, so we end up being creator’s ourselves, and we haven’t stopped tweaking God’s creation since.

A whole lot of man’s creative juices are used in necessary enterprise to take stuff that God put in the wrong place – say, for example, copper in Indonesia – and move it to locations where it can be put to use before being returned to the earth after its usefulness expires.

But sometimes, it seems man’s creative energies flow counter to God’s.  He paints us a picture in Genesis, before He even got going on creation, of darkness filled with His spirit.  This notion suggests that darkness is a good thing.  Sometime in our history, language got going on the whole ‘darkness is evil’ concept – white knight versus black knight, black cats, and even Darth Vadar – but that’s by man, and not a God original.

When I’m at home, awake, and it’s after the sun goes down, I have the lights on.  No big deal, it keeps me from bumping into the stuff I’ve rented from the good earth that clutters up my living room.  Someday, when it gets all worn out, I’ll load it into a pickup truck and return it to the earth.

I like my lights for reading, and talking, and driving.

But we’ve overdone it, which only becomes apparent when you’ve experienced the originally created lights – those holes in the canvas of an inky sky – without all of man’s enhancements.  Yeah, you’re right, I haven’t experienced it either, but a thousand miles from the nearest shore, before the moon is out, and while Faith’s lights are turned off, it’s an experience that’s got to come close to God’s created light framed in beautiful darkness.

On land, where exterior illumination is marketed as a measure of security, and packaged for protection, we leave them on, only to lose a night sky worth saving.