Though I bounced around a lot throughout my young adulthood, I eventually settled in the great state of Texas, where people are kind and down-to-earth, where freedom is valued above all else, and where—of course—everything is bigger!
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” we begin. I feel the Holy Ghost breathe through the quivering arms of the sycamore, whose foliage betrays the dawn of autumn. As a monarch butterfly dances through the falling leaves, the Gospel reading warns us: you know not the hour. I close my eyes and wonder: will I be ready if, today, death calls my name? The breeze gently draws my long, golden hair into its rhythm, as the Lord of the universe tugs on my heart to return.
We descend through a tunnel to the lower level of the pyramid, where we no longer see but glimpses of the white beams that hold up the glass sky. Ripples of light bounce from water onto the underbelly of the bridge we were just on. We walk through drapes of hanging moss that tickles my head, and I admire the vibrant orchids that have been carefully placed among them. We are swaddled in color: purple plumes and magenta foliage, yellow fans and peach-colored palm stalks, scattered throughout every shade of green in every possible shape. Long whistles, raspy trills, and the stuttering cry of loons are joined by the sound of rushing water, and something like the croak of a frog—or perhaps a monkey. Was that an elephant I just heard? The jungle plays tricks on my ears, and holds its secrets from me.
Why do we look at the stars? Why are we universally gripped with wonder by specks on black? No difference occurs from age, gender, race, beliefs and background, or what moment in history we were destined to be born into. Lines of ancestors gazed with the same gaping mouths, at the same celestial mysteries, long before we could touch meteors and Mars rocks in the air-conditioned comfort of NASA’s space center. Long before we even knew the twinkling lights in the sky were stars.
