It was hazy on Monday afternoon as I jogged across Furman’s campus. The giant oak shadows had lengthened eerily, and a train of students was making its way up the hill to the rugby field where a little camp was forming. And here was the weirdest part: Everyone I passed was looking up.
I have this awkward running habit where I try to make eye contact with and wave at every person I pass. The majority of the people won’t return the wave; in fact, they won’t even look up. Can you guess where they’re looking?
The spectacle of technology—particularly our phones—has drawn our gaze earthward, but it was not always so. Mankind used to look into the heavens for his navigation—but now he has Google maps. Humans used to feel dwarfed by the vast expanse above—but now the glow of our screens has dimmed its light. We used to look to the starry sky as a fixed anchor for an unpredictable world—but now we’d be hard pressed to locate the North Star!
On my first read through The Divine Comedy, Dante’s persistent tracking of the stars seemed oddly obsessive. Was it some sort of superstition? Was it astrology? Not until I followed Dante into the heavens of Paradiso did I realize that his continual gaze heavenward was an act of prayer: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in the heavens.”
When Dante looked heavenward, he saw burning spheres revolving in “calm tranquility”—living, moving, and having their being in absolute accord with the will of the Creator. The heavens were a theater, and the music of the spheres sung forth in perfect harmony.
When was the last time you really looked up? We take the sun, moon, and all the stars for granted—that they will faithfully continue to mark signs and seasons, days and years, as they have from the day they were created (Genesis 1:14). As we peer into the heavens, it engenders in us a desire to perfectly do his will here on earth as we see it done in the heavens. To borrow from an old hymn, our prayer is to become like the stars: “Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.”
Gazing Heavenward
The Ashbys had fun this past Monday making eclipse “theaters” from cardboard and aluminum foil. Our son Fletcher was particularly chuffed at how well they worked!