Starlight is an amazing thing. To stand in awe of the stars, recognising how tiny we are in the immensity of this Universe, can be both humbling and, perhaps surprisingly, revitalising. In our Service this week we considered our own mortality in the light of the stars, and how we might use this to shape our spiritual development through Lent - which starts this Wednesday.
The words of the Sermon are set out below. Or an MP3 of it can be downloaded by clicking the link at the top of this post.
We approach Lent this week. It is Shrove Tuesday (or Jif Lemon Day), followed by Ash Wednesday. And so begins the traditional forty days of preparation for Easter. Or actually, forty-six, but it’s all a bit complicated.
However, this is, of course, a time in which it is normal to give something up. A time to stop doing something we know is bad for us. Or a time to withhold a treat that has become a little to regular in our lives.
I have been in New England for the last week. My eating habits have shifted in that time. I have lived on a frugal diet of burgers, Boston Cream Pie, burgers, fries, burgers, liquid chocolate, marshmallow breakfast cereals, burgers, pizza and, I recall, a doughnut or two.
Oh, and a variety of peanut-butter based chocolate bars.
I did have fruit and vegetables as well, but think I know what I have to give up for Lent. I know full well that to continue that diet will do me harm and, even if I had the opportunity to continue to eat in this way, I know I must stop.
I’m sure many of you will have already thought about what you might give up.
Lent also provides the chance to think a little on how we can also add to our lives – how we might use Lent to realign and re-balance our spiritual selves.
Lent is about mortality. There are only two certainties in life – we are all born, and we will all die. We are mere mortals.
And Lent has traditionally also led to thinking on mortality. In the Christian tradition, it of course is part of the build-up to Easter, the time where the Church remembers the death of Jesus on the Cross. The death of a human.
And it is this that has been the focus for Lent. A reminder of our own mortality. About the potential we carry as humans, but also about the need to focus on achieving good now – since we cannot, we really cannot, put off doing great things for ever. We will not be here forever.
If you walk around town on Wednesday, you might see some people with ashes rubbed onto their foreheads. The meaning of Ash Wednesday. One of the reminders these ashes give is that from dust and ashes we come, and to dust and ashes we will return. We are human.
We have heard a lot this morning about stars, and the magical effect they can have on our lives. We know that people have been fascinated by the stars for thousands of years. They are amazing things.
For early peoples, they began to notice the way in which the stars appeared to predict the seasons. These tiny pinpricks of light – light from the gods themselves, shining down on us at night. Each and every night. They are always there. They are there in the day as well, it’s just that it’s too light elsewhere to see them.
Amazing things.
We heard earlier from the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher and writer. The extract was from the opening chapter of his essay ‘Nature’, and concluded with the observation:
‘The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.’
Emerson wrote those words in the 1830s, almost 200 years ago. Pretty recent in the history of stargazing.
In the Hebrew Bible, in the book of Psalms, we find the words:
‘When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?’
A clear reminder of both the tiny place we as individuals take in this vast Universe, but also perhaps a reference to the asymmetrical position we hold. We are so tiny, yet we can do so much.
Sura 41 of the Qur’an, the Holy Book of Islam, in describing the Creation states:
And He completed them seven heavens in two days
and inspired in each heaven its command;
and We adorned the lower heaven with lamps,
and rendered it guarded.
and inspired in each heaven its command;
and We adorned the lower heaven with lamps,
and rendered it guarded.
And Sura 37:
We have indeed adorned the lower heaven with the beauty of the stars. (37:6)
Again, the magnificence of the stars is recognised as other-worldly. A sacred and holy place, a place of God. The lower heaven is adorned with the beauty of the stars.
The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, who lived at the turn of the 20th Century used the image of the stars, the power of the stars to describe his own feelings about his relationship with God. In fact, Rilke spent most of his life trying to understand his relationship to God, the ineffable presence that he, like many of us, simply could not find words to adequately sum his feelings.
He tried in the poem, Buddha in Glory
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
And maybe Rilke sums it well. The awesome nature of our universe is about as close as we can get to imagining God. To imagining that great something that connects us. Soul to soul. A living spiritual community. Both with each other and beyond. A sacred connection to every living thing.
Only when we gaze at the stars can we begin to comprehend how incomprehensible it all is.
It is not unreasonable to think of the stars are unchanging, whilst our little lives are lived out. Their immense presence is the unchanging constant is a Universe of change.
But even the stars change. They are moving, growing, shrinking, exploding, colliding. They may be providing light and heat to planets very like our own. They may be incubating life elsewhere. And other life-forms may be looking at the stars from their own planets. Equally fascinated, equally transfixed.
And maybe predicting the future from the stars.
Astrology still fascinates many. The link between the stars and fate. The recognition of the holy, the sacred in those beacons of light in the heavens.
I’m not so sure that the alignment of the planets at any particular time will really have that great an effect on my life, or the type of person I am. But then, I’m a Taurus, always the doubter.
But what does this really have to do with Lent?
Rudolph Steiner, the Austrian philosopher and social reformer said:
‘Festivals are meant to link the human soul with all that lives and weaves in the great Universe.’
And for me this is as true of Lent as it is for any other great religious festival.
Lent is a time of contemplation. A time of reflection on our own mortality and importance. Or otherwise.
And, on a crisp, cold night, as we have been having quite a lot of recently, the sight of the stars provides that link to the human soul. A recognition of the part we play as a small cog in this giant machine of life.
A small cog, yes. But still an essential one. This universe, in all its greatness, contains each and every one of us. We are a part of this Universe, and it is a part of us. It is within us, and without us.
Kathleen McTigue, in our first reading, captured it well:
I was halfway down the driveway before I glanced up. My jaw dropped – there before me was the whole spread of the Milky Way splintered out across the clear black sky, stars behind stars in the deep pool of space. And then I finally stood still, washed in starlight that had been travelling toward me for millions of years. I was brought to my senses, and very nearly brought to my knees.
Haven’t we all been there. Bowed in reverence before the starlit night?
And Emerson:
But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.
Some time reflecting and meditating on the stars will, I believe, bring you closer to all that lives and weaves in the great Universe. It can bring the chance to reconnect with that greatness.
Yes, to recognise the tiny part we play in the history of time. But also to recognise that we too are part of this immense beauty. We too are elements of this giant cosmic stage on which time rolls out.
As we prepare for Lent. As we consider the things we should stop doing in order make ourselves better. Let us also consider the great things we can begin to do. To consider the positive role we might play in the continuing drama of the Universe.
As Oscar Wilde said,
'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'
