Stars

You asked me what I thought of when you said stars,

I said,

Switchfoot "When I look at the stars I feel like myself

When I look at the stars I see someone else."

Fun "When I see stars, when I see stars that's all they are..."

He's like having a crisis of faith, losing his faith.

David Crowder has a sort of worship song,
"You should see the stars at night..."  It's a really

Beautiful song too.

When I think of the stars I think about my mom and her

birthday the Perseids always peak around then one time in Cantonment

We sat out in the field with the T's and I was running for something

But we all saw it, some blasted piece of comet skipping across the sky

Leaving a blue flame before it burst in two and exploded. 

I think about my Father and when we camped with my brother on Mount Hood and

he was busy fiddling with the packs while my brother and I watched the sky turn day-bright with

a passing rock, dad's shadow fell on our sleeping bags, but he didn't even notice,

and we were stupefied that how he could've missed something so bright.

I think about my sister and how she got bit by a raccoon because my dad was feeding

The raccoons regularly even bought a dozen goldfish for the fountain on the back deck

And in the morning all but one scared timid fish was gone, anyway,

She loved those stars, and a raccoon bit her and she had to get rabies shots,

Running in Mexico beneath the stars was beautiful, and I needed it, but STUPID dogs,

I didn't get a rabies shot, but it's been six months now so I think I’m not dying.

I wrote a set of poems called "Wander the stars" about how when I die, I just hope that God lets me go wander through his art gallery, that if he’d let me look around through the galaxies and quasars that'd be awful swell...tell you what God, you let me do that, I'll write you some real poetry.  My Father's not the poetic type, he was a Major in the US Marines but one night I remember I was out back with my bare feet feeling the cracks in the paving stones like I always felt when I talked to Bethany and he came out and I asked him if God would let us, if he'd wander the stars with me, and he said he would, and well, I think of all the things a dad could do for a boy, that one was awful swell.

Remembering how I wrote those poems makes me miss something.  When I used to look up I used to lose my breath.  I remember in Ensenada Kyle and I spent a whole worship service not paying attention, we were just looking up and talking to each other about how beautiful the stars were, about how awesome it was that God made them.  I like that, I think that was one of the only real worship services I've ever participated in.  The thing is, near the coast, the marine layer and the humidity clouds the stars and it's hard to appreciate when you're used to Arizona or the Mountains...in Payson we'd sleep out on our grandparents' back porch and we'd count satellites, saying we'd have to see 10 or 20 before we went to sleep that night.  One time we slept out Kate got bit by so many mosquitos we thought she had chicken pox.  But the stars were worth it.

Now I spend much more time with the computer screen, and it seems like everything I was and had is something that I'm missing.  The stars' lost sheen, God's night air breath inside of me, Bethany's voice next to my well-worn pacing feet.  On the worst day of my life I looked up and desperately asked God if he would let me talk to her, just for a few minutes.  It was the end of my rope, and a hurricane had knocked all the cell towers out.  So a star blazed across in front of me and after that my phone got signal for ten minutes, and if that didn't save my life, it certainly let me know You're there and well, probably saved my parents the heartache of searching for a runaway.

The stars are like poetry, I've been running from them, I've been running from me, I don't know, they're just stars right??  Destiny is scary, love and heart scare me, poetry scares me, and the stars might be far away but they're ablaze and although I'd like to swim through them they would destroy me completely.

Last August my parents and I went out to the beach at about midnight for the Perseids, I fell asleep pretty quick but I saw seven or eight, I was sitting there wishing you would be there with me, that I could feel breath at my cheek, I fell asleep daydreaming.  We went to Giruliai a fateful evening later the next week...but no stars and an open car door almost took my head off, anyway, I wanted to say thanks, because tonight, even though I haven't left the building, the stars are burning brightly, you helped me see, you helped me sing.