Summer Skies

My sister recently named her favorite thing in all the world as skies. When we're together, situating ourselves in a beautiful spot where we can watch the sun set, hopefully with a refreshing beverage in hand, is a Big Deal. She often notes that she doesn't get skies in Texas like we get here in Georgia. Sitting on my deck at dusk recently, I decided to take special note of the skies overhead. Here's what I saw:

• many chimney swifts, chattering loudly, darting after one another, ravenously gobbling mosquitoes (I hope) at every breakneck turn;
• quite a few bats, equally hungry, less gregarious and just the tiniest bit creepy;
• several airliners (full of people going somewhere for as many reasons as there are people), climbing to altitude after leaving Atlanta, one catches the sun and shimmers brilliantly in the darkening gloom, contrail flowing behind;
• a handful of quietly emerging stars and planets, reminding me how small I am and yet how blessed to share with the angels in enjoying the beauty of the universe;
• one moon, the same one visible tonight in Dallas, Florida, England and Iraq, anywhere a person takes a moment to look up and observe.

I read some verses in the Bible that I think explain why the skies never cease to draw us and inspire us to awe and wonder:

The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. God has made a home in the heavens for the sun. Ps. 19:1-4.

They're telling us something that we all instinctively, whether we acknowledge it or not, want desperately to hear.