Something about a Summer Sky – Its Beauty and Its Dangers

by John V. Upton, Executive Director

Whether it’s standing on the beach looking out at the horizon or riding through the Blue Ridge Mountains at dusk, there is something about a summer sky.  I have found myself quoting Psalm 19 often these days.  This personal prayer of the psalmist is both intimate and absolutely brilliant.  C.S. Lewis, who among other things was a brilliant literary critic, said of Psalm 19 that it is one of the greatest poems in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.  In other words, the psalmist has meditated most thoughtfully, and his offering of words is tremendously rich.  The words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart are not only acceptable, they are gorgeous. 

We busy people need to pause this summer to hear the words of Psalm 19.  The psalm begins by meditating on the skies.  The gaze is upward.  The psalmist is reflecting, sighing, and saying “the heavens are telling the glory of God, the wonder of his work displays the firmament.”  The skys do not have words, he says.  Yet, their witness goes out.  Consider the sun, he says, running across the sky like a bridegroom and nothing is hidden from it.

We are encouraged to look up: infinite stars in the skies, blazing sun by day, the beauty of dawn, the splendor of sunsets – “glory” says the Psalm, glory of God.  Not everyone draws that conclusion.  Science accounts very well for the movements and the colors in the sky.  Justifiably it can be said that sun, stars, and sunsets point to nothing but themselves.  But what answer can be given to why we are so moved by them?  Why do we have intuitions that while these are above us, something is beyond them?  Even if we have no faith, why do the heavens fill us with awe and with something like praise?

Faith offers its answer that of course there is no proof of it – the psalmist says the skys do not have words, yet still they do tell of glory, God’s glory, giving an imperfect glimpse of a splendor of God and of what God can do.  God is in the science and beyond it.  And to those who gaze upward in receptive faith the skies are shouting, “Glory”!

I have to give a warning about being in the summer sun, because there is a consequence to gazing at the sun that always comes.  To glimpse the greatness of God is to see something of the smallness of ourselves.  God’s light has a way of exposing the secrets, the secret sins that we ourselves cannot see.  “Who can detect their errors?  Cleanse me of hidden faults,” says the psalmist.

Nothing is hidden from the sun.  I think this is the hardest problem we face.  Harder than the damage done to us by others, harder than our familiar imperfections, harder than any other challenge that we face – to see our hidden faults and sins, the ones that others can see but we don’t, or maybe no one can see but they thrive within us like rats and roaches.  Fear, arrogance, rage, and gross insecurities unlighted are horribly corrosive.  Unfaced, they will drive us from behind, causing harm to others and to ourselves.  And why live a life so blind to ourselves if there is help, if there is a chance for clarity of self-awareness?

The summer sky reminds me that in Christ we see the kindness of God, a great light that discloses us to ourselves, that washes our worst secrets and shows us a path that leads to life.  Trust this.  Be entirely open to this.  And this grace, a simple summer sky, will cause the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart to rise acceptable to God and to your shining self.