But look, there are stars

For those who hate the night

I have hated the night.

Not always. But there are times, when tasks stack up through the day and keep me up past midnight, or when old memories come crying and sleep-deprivation sounds better than dreams, that I dread the rising darkness.¹

There’s silence. There’s coldness. There’s an emptiness to the night that can scare me. Sometimes that’s because I don’t want to look at the thoughts I’ve picked up through the day; other times it’s because I don’t have anything to fill the blankness with.

But every day, night comes.

Whether I like it or not, welcome it or dread it, it will come.

So will grief. So will change. So will friction within relationships. They’re all parts of this world of ours, no matter how much we may hate them.

If we can’t get away from them, what do we do?

Patricia St. John, one of my sister’s favorite authors, has more books than I can keep track of. I’m not actually sure I’ve finished the one I’m about to quote, but there are a few lines in the first chapter that nestled their way into my mind years ago and offered themselves again tonight.

“I hate the dark,” whispered Rahma with a little shiver.

But Hamid stared up into the deep blue sky, through a filigree of olive leaves. “I love the stars,” he said.

— Star of Light, Patricia St. John

What a simple difference.

I spent this evening with friends, greeting the coming night together. We laughed and talked and prayed, then walked home, singing.

Halfway there, city power went out (a fairly normal occurrence). As one, we stood still in the path, staring up at the heavens.

(The glories had been there all along, but it took losing one kind of light to find the true one.)

Stars. I’m outside as I write this, typing on a computer with the brightness turned all the way down, drinking them in.²

The Big Dipper hangs crookedly in front of me, pouring water into an unseen, waiting hand. I saw Orion earlier tonight, though he’s slipped beyond the western horizon by now. Other constellations that I still can’t name fill the sky.

Counting stars is never easy, but I’ve found at least two hundred and two tonight. Just earlier, a falling star flashed across the glittering expanse.

There are still things to be done inside. There are still goodbyes to be said in the weeks to come. The night is still here, whispering in the wind, brimming with darkness.

But oh, look, there are stars.

May the God who named and numbered them be with you tonight. May his love surround you, comfort you, awaken you. May he break every darkness and quicken every dawn.

I have hated the night.

I have loved the stars.

1. Traditional phrasing says that night “falls,” but that’s never how I’ve seen it. It’s more like the darkness seeps out of the ground, hazing the earth and only last conquering the sky.

2. Note from editing this later: Typos most definitely occurred.