Billie Silvey
February 2008
An eclectic website about Women, Christianity, History,
Culture and the Arts--and anything else that comes to mind.
Culture and the Arts--and anything else that comes to mind.
Seeing Stars
Growing up in the Panhandle of Texas, the main things we had
were God, each other, and sky--a lot of sky. On a summer
night, Mother, Daddy, Barbara, the family dog Nutty and I
would spread a quilt in the front yard and lie on our backs and
look at the sky.
From the flat plains, it wrapped all around us, and without
competition from city lights, it was filled with stars. We could
see them shining, twinkling, falling, and splashed across the
sky like a path. We knew that was the Milky Way. We
could identify a few stars and planets and constellations, but
mostly we just looked in wonder at their beauty.
Like people since the dawn of time, I made up my own stories
of how it came to be. Mostly, I thought it looked like
pinpricks in the fabric of heaven that let God’s glory shine
through. Of course, I’d studied about stars in science. I
knew they were “masses of burning gases,� much
further away than they appeared and much larger than the
earth I was lying on. But that was a difficult concept to bend
my brain around. Besides, I liked my definition better.
This month’s website is about Space--the history of
human concepts of space, the story of an elder from our
church whose life is tied up with space, and the biblical
concept of God in relation to space.
I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll write me at b.
silvey@sbcglobal.net with your own concepts of space--as a
child or adult, a scientist or admirer, a person of faith or of
reason.
were God, each other, and sky--a lot of sky. On a summer
night, Mother, Daddy, Barbara, the family dog Nutty and I
would spread a quilt in the front yard and lie on our backs and
look at the sky.
From the flat plains, it wrapped all around us, and without
competition from city lights, it was filled with stars. We could
see them shining, twinkling, falling, and splashed across the
sky like a path. We knew that was the Milky Way. We
could identify a few stars and planets and constellations, but
mostly we just looked in wonder at their beauty.
Like people since the dawn of time, I made up my own stories
of how it came to be. Mostly, I thought it looked like
pinpricks in the fabric of heaven that let God’s glory shine
through. Of course, I’d studied about stars in science. I
knew they were “masses of burning gases,� much
further away than they appeared and much larger than the
earth I was lying on. But that was a difficult concept to bend
my brain around. Besides, I liked my definition better.
This month’s website is about Space--the history of
human concepts of space, the story of an elder from our
church whose life is tied up with space, and the biblical
concept of God in relation to space.
I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll write me at b.
silvey@sbcglobal.net with your own concepts of space--as a
child or adult, a scientist or admirer, a person of faith or of
reason.