Star Gazing

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

It's been a while since I've thought about this poem by Whitman. I first stumbled upon it in high school and have returned to it various times through the years.

How often in life do we get weighed down by the minutiae, the measurements, the details? And how much good would it do us, like Whitman's subject, to leave the minutiae behind for a while (even if the world's applauding it) and just go stand in silence before the Lord for a bit?

Maybe in our quest for the Lord we're getting bogged down with "charts and diagrams" - books upon books, songs, speakers, seminars about the Lord when all we need sometimes is just to be with the Lord.

Isaiah 47:13a says:

All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!

If, like me, you find yourself searching and searching for the Lord's presence maybe we should take Whitman's advice and look "up in perfect silence at the stars." Or as it says in Psalm 46:10a,

"Be still and know that I am God."

I could use a little "star-gazing" these days. How about you?