Blowin’ in the Wind: Roaming the Milky Way with John Adams

("Blowin’ in the Wind" is a regular feature on my blog consisting of an assortment of nature writings – hymns, songs, excerpts, prayers, Bible readings, poems or other things – pieces I may not have written but that inspire me or give me joy. I trust they’ll do the same for you.)

I’ve not referenced a movie before among my “Blowin’ in the Wind” essays, but I recently watched with Gail the highly acclaimed HBO miniseries, John Adams, featuring Paul Giamatti doing a nice job in the lead and Laura Linney a compellingly acted Abigail. It chronicles some of the interesting history of post-revolutionary War America, especially, what it took to complete the grand experiment of the first presidential succession. The series is quite long, so don’t expect to bag it in a single evening; but pick it up at your local library and spend several nights with some popcorn in front of the TV before warm spring evenings entice you outdoors.

Even though it’s probably fictional, there’s a lovely scene near the end of the series that grabbed my attention, and that I thought I’d enjoy sharing with you. Adams, late in life, long after his presidency and long back on his Massachusetts farm, walks slowly down a lane among his fields talking with his son Thomas. He is about 90 years of age by this time, his wife and two of his children have preceded him in death, and their conversation turns reflective. Sunset is past, dusk is deepening, and Thomas bids him turn and begin the walk home, as it is getting late.

Yarrow

Adams stops abruptly, thinks, and says to Thomas, “Come here…” His son stops and turns, and Adams says to him quietly, “I have seen a queen of France with eighteen million livres of diamonds on her person. But I declare that all the charms of her face and figure, added to all the glitter of her jewels, did not impress me as much… as that little shrub,” and he points to a small wildflower. (If my memory serves, it was a nondescript white yarrow.) “Now, your mother always said that I never delighted enough in the mundane, but now I find if I look

at even the smallest things, my imagination begins to 

roam the Milky Way.”                                                                     

…Your mother always said I never delighted

enough in the mundane, but now I find if I

look at even the smallest things, my imagination

begins to roam the Milky Way…

He pauses, then says very softly, “Rejoice evermore! Rejoice evermore!” His son looks at him like he’s losing touch, and Adams says with a smile, “Well, it’s a phrase from St. Paul, you fool! Rejoice evermore!” And then he shouts loudly with a jump in his step, “Rejoice evermore!” Laughing, he continues, “Oh, I wish that had always been in my heart and on my tongue. You know, I am filled almost with an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees in adoration right here,” and he gets weak-kneed and falls into his son’s arms chuckling.

As Thomas holds him up, Adams finally says, “If only my knees would bend like they used to!” He kisses his son on the cheek, and they continue.

That simple scene affected me strongly, a good example of what often happens to the Christian naturalist caught up to spontaneous praise by the most unpretentious of things. The beauty, mystery and singularity of creation is astounding.

So pay attention. Look for beauty everywhere. You might just also find yourself when you least expect it to be roaming the Milky Way.

~~ Rejoice evermore (1 Thessalonians 5:16),

RGM, February 28, 2016

From my Journal: Enhanced Night Vision

It is late. At the end of the dock I sit and shut off my flashlight. One by one the stars present themselves on a moonless summer night, my eyes growing accustomed to the darkness.

First I spot the biggies: the seven stars of the Big Dipper, and, trailing the arc of its handle, the astonishingly bright Arcturus in the constellation Bootes; to the south, red Antares, the heart of the Scorpion; directly overhead, the asterism of the Summer Triangle – Vega in Lyra, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, and Deneb in Cygnus the Swan. Within moments it seems these pinpoints of light no longer present themselves one by one but a hundred by a hundred: Draco the Dragon; Sagittarius the Waterbearer and a coincidently nearby Jupiter; the body detail of Ursa Major, the Big Bear, in which the Big Dipper lies; the asterisms Northern Crown and Northern Cross; even the dim and diminutive dolphin Delphinus. I begin to see satellites, coursing usually northerly, some so dim they can only be seen with averted vision against a seemingly motionless backdrop. Finally comes what I have been hoping for, the crowning joy of the night sky, the test of what constitutes, for me, a truly good night of seeing: the 
Milky Way begins to slowly 'reverse fade' into view;

The Big Dipper in the
constellation Ursa Major

eventually I see it spanning the length of the sky from 
horizon to horizon, from north of Queen Cassiopeia 
to horizon’s end south of the Teapot.

All the stars were showing immediately when I shut the light off several minutes ago, but I could not see them. It is my eyes that needed adjustment. My pupils had contracted indoors to protect my eye’s sensitive rods from light’s intensity. And now as they 
dilate in the dark, they gather dimmer light as a larger telescope would, and I am able to see clearly things formerly not visible just moments ago. It seemed near pitch black blindness when the flashlight went out, but as my eyes have adjusted to the darkness I sense enough light to not only move around the dock without falling in, but to leave the light in my pocket and take a walk, or push out over black water for a midnight paddle.

The light shines in the

darkness, and the darkness

has not overcome it.

(John 1:5)

There is light in my darkness. My night vision has been enhanced.

Lord, with darkness all around how I need enhanced night vision, a different kind than that I experience sitting here at the end of a dock.

Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for to you darkness is as the light. (Psalm 139:12)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)

~~RGM, from an earlier  journal entry,

Adapted for Blog June 11, 2013