Signs, Seasons, Days, Years, Light . . .

Genesis 1:14-15   And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. (ESV)

One of the purposes of God creating the Sun and Moon and stars was for signs and season, days and years, and light upon the earth. In the last few centuries we've lost a lot of the "working" understanding of the heavens as a way to mark the passing of time (days, months, years) as it has been replaced with wall calendars, electronic calendars, clocks and watches. It strikes me that the less we pay attention to the heavens, the less we often connect with God as well, because another purpose of the heavens, according to God's Word, is to display His glory. I know that for me, spending time gazing upward and reflecting, puts things on earth back into perspective and returns me to a place of worship and awe.

We started homeschool with our girls this week and one of the things I am doing is teaching them Classical Astronomy from a wonderful book called Signs & Seasons by Jay Ryan which we got at a homeschool conference. (You can find the book and sign up for free Classical Astronomy newsletters at www.classicalastronomy.com.) Classical Astronomy is the study of the heavens (which includes the Sun, our most visible star!) without telescopes, but with the naked eye as they have been done since Creation. It is like learning to read a book written across the sky by God, and it is fascinating how easily you can determine directions, times, and seasons through what He has placed there. I have found in the study that what I used to look at and not even notice (does that make sense?) I am now noticing in far different ways (the length of shadows, etc.).

Pounding nails to mark the shadow every 10 minutes.

Our first "field" project has been building a compass in our backyard using the Sun. The principle is that when the sun is highest (high noon, not necessarily your watch's noon) shadows point North and the Sun is South. You can tell when it is at its highest when the shadows are shortest in the day. (Incidentally, that North/South line is called the meridian, or "middle of the day" and when the sun is before it it is "ante meridian," or "am," and when it is past it then it is "post meridian," or "pm." Cool, isn't it!)

Around 2:40 pm. We are ready to find the shortest!

So, we put a stake in the ground and the girls went out about every 10 minutes from around 11:30 am onward and drove a nail at the center, end of the shadow of the stake. Later we found which was the shortest shadow and drew a line through the stake to that nail and past it and we had our line North. We drove a spike in the ground about 80" out from the stake on that line and then carried the line back 80" to the other side of the stake and drove a spike, marking South. Then, using intersecting arcs drawn from each North/South stake we could find a point 90-degrees off the center in the East and West directions and we marked a line from the center spike 80" in each of those directions and put a spike. Now we have a compass 160" in diameter in our back yard! It points straight at the North Star!

Each of us standing at the cardinal points of our compass—
Bethany, North; Abigail, South; Mary Ann, East; myself,
West. We also have a spike in the center for future reference.

We are looking forward to moving further in the book and being drawn closer to our Creator as we marvel at the order and design He has woven into His Creation, and we worship Him as a family. Thanks, Jay and your family, for sharing your knowledge with us!

Viewpoint is Everything . . .

How many GALAXIES can you count?

If any of you have known me, or followed my blog, any length of time, you know that I often turn to space and the stars as the place in which I put things back in proper perspective and remind myself how big and utterly amazing God is. Sometimes just stepping outside and staring up and reflecting for a few moments can bring a peace and restoration to my thoughts and anxieties that have gotten out of order and balance. But, that isn't the case for everyone, and I had a real lesson in how much viewpoint matters the other day . . .

Recently, with all the hype about the star Betelgeuse and whether it was dying next year or not, I spent a little time looking at more facts about it on the internet, and locating it in the night sky. What I learned was amazing (it is in the constellation Orion, by the way, and easy to see from our area at night). While one of the bigger stars, it is far from the biggest star, and yet, according to one video, if you were to take that tiny star and put its center where our sun is, its edges would go 90% of the way to Saturn's orbit! Picture that—this star, if it was put in the place of our sun, would have, inside of it, all the planets between the sun and Saturn—which means that Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the largest of our planets, Jupiter, would all be inside it . . . along with all the space inbetween them! And it's not the largest star!

According to one video, if a plane flew around the largest known star at 900 km/h (which I believe is 560 mph) it would take it 1,100 years to get around it once! And these are just a couple of stars in our single Milky Way galaxy. To put that in perspective, according to Wikipedia, the Milky Way galaxy alone has 100–400 billion STARS in it, and is 100,000 light years across! That means that, if you traveled at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second—or 700 million miles per hour—a speed that would take you around the earth over seven times in a second) it would take you 100,000 years to cross our galaxy alone . . . and there are billions of galaxies in our universe!

Now, here's where viewpoint matters. The impact that these figures had on the people making the videos I watched, and many of the people commenting on them on YouTube, was to make them feel completely insignificant. One video ended with flashing the words, "You are not the center of the universe!" Another had a quote by Carl Sagan in which he said, "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."

Some of the comments posted on these videos included (using their syntax/grammar):

Look? how small & insignificant we are. LOOK how small! We probably (possibly) the most insignificant thing in the galaxy. We are SMALL!!

i agree 100% that most people(including my wife) dont realize how lucky we are to be here.most people could care less about the universe and the planet we live on.what are the odds of there being a planet with the ingredients for life which orbits a sun in the? exact spot to form life with intelligence to figure out how lucky we really are??

"Luck . . . insignificant . . . forgotten corner . . . lost in a galaxy . . ." this is the perspective and viewpoint one gets by looking at these stars, galaxies, and facts without a knowledge of the love of God who made them, and the story of the cross. I, on the other hand, find myself drawn to completely opposite conclusions when I stare at the sky and ponder these same facts that these other people have. For example, the other night at our fire department drill, I stared up and saw Betelgeuse up there and I pictured the graphic I had seen of that single star swallowing our solar system out to almost Saturn, and I felt such a huge sense of how huge my God is, and I thought, "Why do I ever worry about anything when my God who loves me is so big!" Such peace and security flooded me after that.

I look up at these stars, and ponder the size of the universe, and then I realize that the God who made all of that crowned it with the creation of man, in His image. I read in the Word that before He ever formed the earth He had His plan in place to adopt me through His Son's death. I realize that, of this vast universe, He chose to come to our planet to die, to redeem us for His own, to live with us in eternity, and that, with this vast universe, He knows the number of hairs on my head and my every thought and He loves me and calls me His own. For me, the size of the stars and the universe doesn't make me feel insignificant—rather, I find that the more I realize that the God who made all of that knows me intimately and loves me so much that He died for me makes me realize that I am of great worth to the One whose estimate matters most.

I think the difference is that for those who don't know Him and His love they start from here and look farther and farther out and just feel smaller and more lost and more insignificant. I look at the same stars, but I start at the farthest point and I realize that the Father's eyes move from them closer and closer to us, here, who He has loved and made in His image and died for on a cross to have a relationship with of fellowship, love, adoption as His children, and eternal life with Him. When I see it that way I realize that we are, in fact, the center of the universe—because we are the center of His love and eye, and He is all that matters. Yes, the universe displays the glory of God . . . but we, as Christians, carry it . . . He dwells in us and calls us His own. Yes, viewpoint is everything . . .