“... and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years...” (Genesis: 1:14-18)

One night a couple of years ago, my husband was working late and I decided to take my dinner and a book out on the deck to enjoy the quite evening of a summer day. I had spent other evenings like this, but always before I had either switched on the outside lights or returned to the well-lit interior as soon as the sun set. That night I lingered. I put down my book, stretched out on the wooden bench, and peered into the dusky blue-gray of the sky as it appears when the sun has just deserted it. I observed that as the light faded, so did the color in all the objects around me until everything was defined in a varying shade of gray; the house, the trees, the flowers, the grass, all slowly lost their individual hues. It was as if color like the light drained away to rest though the night and return with the sun each morning to fill the day with beauty.

As the visual world darkened around me, I turned from looking to listening. I heard all the sounds you would expect to hear in a quiet neighborhood as night falls softly over it. An occasional car passing on the street, a dog barking a few houses away, air conditioners humming, children being called inside, birds chirping as they settle for the night, and tree frogs tuning up for their nightly serenade.

Then, as I lay there enjoying the moving “Nocturne,” I was transported from my reverie of listening and back into the realm of the visual with the appearance of a single star almost directly above me. It slipped into my consciousness in an instant. “Suddenly” is too abrupt a term to describe it. One moment it was not there and the next moment, it was. I raised myself up to see if there were any others that I may have missed as their tiny lights that had traveled the vast distances of space were finally able to shine down upon the earth without being obliterated by the light of the mighty sun. There were as yet, no others-only this one all alone. For a time there were just the two of us, but then slowly other stars began to make their presence known in the dark sky until all of God’s firmament was filled sparkling lights. I was watching an event that has occurred every night of my life and every night before that since the creation of the heavens and the earth, and yet this was my first time to experience the actual setting of the signs in the night sky. Once more I was transported, this time into a realm whose magnitude my human senses could never begin to comprehend. I was joyful and I was fearful.

I have reflected many times on the event of that summer night trying understand why it had such a powerful effect on me at the time and continues to do so. My growing understanding is that in “the greater light that rules the day,” it is almost impossible to imagine that the glittering host of stars we can see at night are always out there. My vision is actually limited by the flood of light that fills my world. I see what I need to see to get my work done. It is as if a spotlight keeps my attention focused on my daily duties. I perform as an actor on a stage that cannot see beyond the footlights. Weather reports often give visibility in miles to indicate how clearly I can see on a given day: 15 miles, 40 miles. I experience my bright, lovely world within the limited ranges of my seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. Often during the busy, sun-lit hours, something happens that allows me to sense the presence of God within that limited range that makes up my world/my life. Those times inspire me with gratitude for and increased awareness of the wonders that constitute that world. When it happens it is as if the immanence of God lights my day.

I believe the significance of the experience is that as darkness descended over my world, my visibility diminished from miles to feet to inches and then in an instant miraculously expanded into millions of miles and then further into light years. My eyes were forced to look beyond my familiar world no longer discernible without the sun. I was, as I have been before, disconcerted by the fact that the reality of what I can observe in the heavens is the reality of a time long passed. Because of the distances some of the light must travel before my eyes can perceive it, I was not only peering out into space but back into time. And I wondered about what God had created out there in His vast universe that those of us on earth would not perceive until far into the future.

The “signs” in Genesis were described as being for seasons, days and years. But on a summer night a couple of years ago, the signs created for me a vastly expanded sense of time as I thought about the past, present, and future on a universal scale. I feel as though I was looking outward into eternity and inward to a reflection of it and in doing so, I caught a glimpse of what we mean when we speak of the “transcendence” of God.

Rebecca Williams is a parishioner of
Grace Church, Chattanooga