Thousand Thousand Stars

With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,

With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared

Spangling the hemisphere.

-Paradise Lost, John Milton

This weekend I was in Gainesville hanging out with 2 of my brothers, sister-in-law, and another friend. We went to a Gator Basketball game, which isn't really my "thing", but I am always up for doing something fun and different. The group of us had tickets, but two of the tickets were court side tickets, row 2, right behind the opposing team's bench. For the first half of the game, I was sitting up near the very top of the dome. And for the second half, we swapped seats, and I was court side. What a dramatic spot to be! We were packed in like sardines on benches, right behind the super big & tall players. The coach was pacing back and forth and screaming to his players. Trash talking was going on all around us, from excited fans. We could see everyone's expressions, what players were saying, and we could see ourselves on the big screens as plays were happening right in front of us. We were no longer just looking onto a court from the nose-bleed section, we were right in the action, and I realized how possible it was that a runaway basketball could very well end up in my lap!

Later that night, back at my brother's house, the conditions were absolutely perfect for stargazing, so we got my little telescope out in the backyard, where the sky opened up to envelope us with twinkling stars, more than I have ever seen, and several planets. As we set the telescope on a table, I saw a shooting star off in the east. Venus was just going below the horizon. Jupiter was bright and bold, and later we noticed Mars glowing red. I could hear John Milton's words in my head "With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared..." Because it wasn't just a thousand stars visible, it was a thousand thousand stars. That second "thousand" makes all the difference. We shivered out there, as the temperature dropped into the 30s. We held mugs of hot chocolate in our hands to warm them. I cannot help but marvel at God's mysterious and beautiful creation.