It is cold tonight. I took a quick walk out into the yard to find some pine kindling to start a fire in the fireplace. The stars hung like frost crystals against the velvet blue canopy. I would have stayed and stared up into the heavens longer if I had not been in danger of accumulating a few frost crystals on my own canopy.
I like to sit in the quiet of the evening and look into the glowing embers of the fire. The dry split red oak logs burn hot and bright. An hour or so ago I watched the news and got wound up tighter than I was when I got off work. I don't want to talk or think about that now. I just want to get still and quiet and warm.
There are things that change. That is what the news was all about. Changes. That's not a bad thing at all. Hopefully a few of the changes are improvements.
But occasionally I need to sit and be quiet, to find a place where change is not quite so furious, so persistent.
Like a star filled sky on a winter night, or the glowing embers of a fire in the darkness. There is something timeless about the stars and a fire. In the quiet, with just the fire and me, or the stars and me, I am no different than countless generations that came before. All have experienced the unfathomable enormity of the star-filled night sky, or the mesmerizing glow of a hot crackling fire.
For the moment, there is no difference. For the moment, we are connected.
Christmas is less than three weeks away. For some reason I haven't thought much about it this year. There is much to do. Good things. But they will wait for another day.
For tonight I join a group of shepherds tending their flocks in a far land, years ago. I imagine they spent a lot of time out in the fields, spending the cold nights under starry skies. I bet they often stared into the fire, in the quiet, listening.
And waiting.
Because change is coming.
.
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