Beyond The Stars
Finding wonder in the everyday
About 6 people die on the streets of Los Angeles every day.1 This number is unfathomable in its scope and clarion in its call to action.
Every year, a coalition of faith congregations and service agencies in this part of LA county gather for an Interfaith Homeless Memorial Service. The names of deceased who had been connected to agencies and congregations will be read aloud at the service. Below, is the reflection I will share at the service.
Hear these words excerpted from Psalm 8:
Lord, our God, how majestic is your name throughout the earth!
You made your glory higher than heaven!
When I look up at your skies, at what your fingers made—
the moon and the stars that you set firmly in place—
what are human beings that you think about them;
what are human beings that you pay attention to them?
Yet you’ve made them only slightly less than divine,
crowning them with glory and grandeur.
Lord, our God, how majestic is your name throughout the earth!
-Psalm 8 CEB
The Psalmist says:
“What are human beings that you think of them? Pay attention to them?”
And perhaps related: what is the value of a human life?
Is the value based on how long you live? How much impact you make? How many people you know? How much money you’re able to make or to leave to the next generation? Or even how much laughter you experience? How much hardship or sorrow? How many places you go? How many people you love? How many regrets you have? Or how many people know your name when you die?
The psalmist is describing a common human experience: feeling awe and wonder. On this occasion, it’s taking in the vastness of creation – namely the stars – that fills the Psalmist with awe. Several times when I’ve been watching the stars, I’ve gotten so lost in them that instead of feeling like I’m looking up, I almost felt that I was looking down (as if there’s a ‘down’ in space). It felt like I was hovering on the earth looking out over the stars: an ocean of eternity in front of me.
“How majestic is your name throughout the earth!”
Standing at the base of a sequoia tree or at the edge of the Grand Canyon, it’s easy to feel awe. We also feel wonder in less spectacular places: gazing at a sleeping child, singing with a group of people, or witnessing the light stream through the trees just so.
Dacher Keltner is a psychology professor at UC Berkely and author of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. He describes a study in which a researcher approached people at the Yosemite overlook on State Route 140 at the entrance to Yosemite Valley. She asked them to draw a picture of themselves and write the word “me.” Apparently this is a way to tell how self-focused people are. In the presence of the vastness of the look out at Yosemite Valley, people drew themselves pretty small. A control group was approached with the same question and piece of paper at Fisherman’s Warf in San Francisco. Their “me” drawings were much bigger.
This is the feeling of awe the psalmist expresses when looking out at the stars. “What are human beings that you think about them; what are human beings that you pay attention to them?” – To us, when we’re so small?
In Keltner’s extensive research from around the world, the most common experience of awe he found was “other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming.” It’s a first order of wonder for our lives – to see other human beings at their most human: when we see someone finding peace in a terminal diagnosis, or are astounded at one person’s capacity to overcome challenges, or witness overwhelming generosity or kindness, even if we’re not on the receiving end.
When we feel that awe and wonder, not only does it make us feel small like we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, it makes us feel connected to one another. We feel the commonality, that all of us are living beings on earth searching for belonging, and that ultimately, we’re in this together.
The purpose of our gathering today is to name aloud this reality of connection and togetherness as we name each person who has passed. The facts and details of each story would leave us all in awe of what our fellow human beings lived through. And we grieve.
And yet, the Psalmist says, “you’ve made them only slightly less than divine, crowning them with glory and grandeur.”
Together, we behold this mystery beyond our telling and beyond our understanding: that the vast wonder of the universe is the same wonder in the smallest fleeting moment, a breath, a life.
Amen.
~Breath Prayer~
Inhale
Filled with awe
Exhale
I am not alone
~What I’m reading~
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May
https://lacounty.gov/2023/05/12/new-public-health-report-shows-sharp-rise-in-mortality-among-people-experiencing-homelessness/
This book has been on my reading list and you just bumped it up higher with this lovely reflection. Thank you so much for your words.