ANCIENT SKIES
I'll never forget an incident some years ago; i was sitting at my computer one evening after dark when suddenly it switched itself off and the light in the room went off.
At first i thought a fuse had blown, but then i realised the street lamp outside had gone off too.
I looked out of the window and there was no light anywhere, not a glimmer of any kind.
Power cut! (It lasted about an hour)
"Oh well" i thought, "i might as well make myself a cup of tea"..
But the kettle stayed cold because i'd forgotten it was an electric kettle, duh..
So i trudged into the other room to watch TV. Bad move, no electricity..
It was turning cold, so i tried the electric heating. Stone cold of course..
I ambled into the back garden to look around and see if i could spot a light somewhere, anywhere, but without success.
Then as my eyes grew accustomised to the pitch blackness, I glanced up to the sky, and was hit by the stunning sight of a trillion stars blazing down that took my breath away!
As a city-dweller i'd never seen them like this before because of light pollution, but now i could see the whole heavenly array in all their splendour, not just the usual bright ones but all the tiny faint ones like grains of sand, and the band of the Milky Way across the zenith, the whole show seemed to have an awesomely dizzying 3D depth to it.
It was a very spiritual experience, there i was, back in the stone age without electricity,cold, lonely and dying for a cup of tea, yet there were the heavens blazing down in all their glory, huge, powerful, majestic, eternal..
"..praise to the Lord, to him who rides the ancient skies above,
whose power is in the skies." (Psalm 68:33-34)
