Orion

In Seminary at Emory University, my professor of Old Testament frequently  quoted the 8th Psalm to begin class. His voice was so eloquent, so resonant it was a lagniappe to hear him read–actually he always quoted from memory any Psalm he used to begin class. Verses 3-4 from Psalm 8 gave me the sensation of sitting inside a grand star-speckled observatory, hearing the voice of God. 

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,    The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,     What is man that You are mindful of him,    And the son of man that You visit him?” (NKJV)

I not studied astronomy, but the heavens fascinated me from childhood; I learned to find the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and the Milky Way; that was about it. My fascination started back on the farm; we had a milk cow named Star. My parents said I named her when she was born; They told the story that one night in the feed lot the stars began to appear in the late evening sky; I looked up said,  “call her Star.” The name stuck. Who knows, given our geographic location, I might have been seeing the flickering of Orion.   Star was the “Star” of our small herd. Going down the dirt road to bring the cows home for milking, I was always glad Star was at the gate waiting.  Once I opened it, she struck out for home.  The other cows followed directly, with none left behind; except for the time Old Pet broke and ran up the hill. But,I digress.

I have something of a passion for road maps; they give perspective, a sense of situation awareness. But you can’t read a road map while driving. So, I condescended to get the first GPS for my car; it was one of those stick-on-the-windshield models and had a female voice. Looking forward to reliable guidance, I named her “Star” in memory of our milk cow—  My granddaughter, Katie affirmed the name. She said, “Papa, it was a Star that guided the Wise Men.”  

A few years ago, i was on my way home after sunset. As I drove past PDK Airport on Chamblee-Tucker Road, I saw lights in the distance, just above the horizon. I thought they were aircraft landing lights —but they weren’t moving. Another evening, sometime later, I saw those lights again; this time not in an aircraft landing pattern . I was curious. The lights appeared to hover over the city. Now, I wondered if maybe a new observation hovercraft was watching some troubled area. As time went by, watching for those lights on clear nights, I often saw them just after dusk. They always occupied an immutable position just a few hundred feet above horizon.

I did not want to appear ignorant; I had not lived in Atlanta a long time, so I was careful about where I asked about these strange lights. My questions did not teem with answers. No one seemed to know, or care about those lights. Most folks seemed uninterested; or appeared to wonder why I was so concerned about the night sky.

Over the years I had heard Orion mentioned, but never gave it much thought. One day, not long ago, I read something describing the brightness of Orion in early evening hours in Southwest sky ! It spurred my interest. Last year when I moved in with Jennifer, my daughter, those lights in the sky were quite visible from our yard. I began to pay attention. There in the evening sky in the Southwest was—not a star, but the the Constellation Orion, one of the most conspicuous in the evening sky.

I never studied Nautical Navigation, or it wouldn’t have been a mystery for me;  Orion is often used as a navigation aid in finding other stars. All navigators, land, sea, and air are comforted by the dependability of finding Orion; for orientation, it ranks up there with the daytime Sun, and in the night sky, the Moon and the North Star. Always conspicuous on a clear night in the evening sky. Jennifer and I have moved, and where we live now, trees obscure the evening sky. So, now I only see Orion from other locations. (FYI, it’s still out there!}

Whenever I see the constellation Orion in the evening sky I think of the magnificent heavens, the work of God’s hands. Human beings have studied the starry skies ever since someone looked up into the night sky. Stories, spun, theories advanced, and untold speculations cast about the powers, messages, and meaning of the stars; some turn out to have more than a smidgin of truth. Fascination with and travel among the stars continue to prowl the minds of human beings.

Come to think about it, Katie was right. A star (apparently not Orion) did guide the Wise Men. And Orion, a constellation of stars— continues to thrill the mind of this not-so-wise-man, guiding him to our Creator! Orion is, as is our Creator, always dependable.