Stars

Think for a minute how well-liked stars are.  I’m talking about the real stars in the sky.  I don’t ever recall anyone who didn’t or doesn’t like stars.  Do you?  Strictly speaking we know from our science studies that stars are “great balls of fire”.  What’s so likeable about that?  It could be the “wow” factor that boggles the mind when you read about the super-size of stars, the ultra-high temperatures, the mega-distances from earth.  Maybe it’s the unreachability of stars that makes them so popular, the elusive wonderment that gives them such appeal.  You can’t say “been there, done that” when it comes to stars! 

Then consider how stars have permeated our culture on earth.  “Star” is a label for a person above and beyond the reality most of us live in (e.g. movie stars, rock stars).  We have five-star hotels although I’ve never been in one myself.  As a school student I used to strive for a little sticky gold star on my assignments and quizzes.  We use stars in the design of our flags, as an identifier for law enforcement and on logos and names for companies (Texaco, Starbucks) and sports teams (Dallas Cowboys, Houston Astros).  Those stars are everywhere!  I’m not even going to get into constellations and the astrology thing and “lucky stars” and the Disney theme song (When You Wish Upon a Star) because quite frankly that’s bogus and we would be wise to steer wide of such nonsense.  But a little misuse aside, I think you’d agree that stars are nice and we attach positive attributes to something when we link it to stars.  “Hitch your wagon to a star”, right?

Well, I am not going to dis on stars.  I like them too.  One of the main reasons I like them because they’re always there even when you can’t see them.  Yes, remember that the stars don’t “go away” during the day.  It’s because of that one star that’s so close to our planet, the one we call the “sun”.  When the light from the sun fills the daytime sky, the stars seem to fade away into nothingness.  But you know what happens at night.  Sun “sets”.  Stars “come out”.  But they never left, right?  We just couldn’t see them because our eyes were so filled with the light of the sun. The faint sparkle of the stars was washed away.  Furthermore if you try to look at the stars on a cloudy night, you can forget about that.  Live inside a big city?  Sorry, even your clearest night skies will be murky with the reflection of city lights.

For about six years I once lived in a rural mountain setting in Colorado at an altitude of about 9,000 ft.  No city lights at night; just a porch light here and there and an occasional pair of headlights.  So on many nights year round I could see thousands upon thousands of stars.  It was very common to see the Milky Way and yes, it really DOES look “milky” it is so dense with stars. 

But even the Rocky Mountain view was insignificant to one night in 1990 when I was driving through Arizona north of the Grand Canyon in the wee hours of the morning.  I stopped my car and got out and was blown away by the stars I could see.  Un-B-lievable.  It looked like someone had spilled a large jar of silver glitter all over a big black blanket.

So, what’s the point?  I have a few of them: 

1. The stars are like God’s presence in our lives.  Whether we see them or not, they are always there.  And so is He.  When we light up our lives with “busyness” and work and activities and all that stuff we do, it’s like living in a spiritual “broad daylight”.  Yes, we can be reminded that the stars are there, but think about it: How often do you think of the stars during the day time?  How often do you think of God during your busy day?

2. The sun is like whatever we place value upon.  Now I could draw connections to pagan sun-worship, but that’s not where I want to take this analogy.  Certainly we assign value (be it high, low or somewhere in between) to the people and possessions and activities that occupy our time and attention.  That’s ok.  But keep this in mind:  we can easily overdo it.  In fact, it takes constant effort NOT to fill our lives with “valuable” things that eventually glow so bright that we risk being blinded by all the light we’ve added to our life’s sky.

3. Clouds?  Well, that’s an easy one.  Even at night when the sun is hidden on the other side of the planet, clouds can block our view of the stars.  Clouds are trials.  Clouds are the hardships and setbacks we endure.  But remember: the stars are still there, and it’s just a matter of time until the clouds are cleared away.

4. The city lights represent the clutter of our thoughts.  Have you ever tried to pray only to find your mind wandering time after time after time?  Oh, that is such a challenge for me to stay focused!  A hazy, backlit, city night sky diffuses the stars’ light just the same as our self-talk and distractions around us evaporate our attention towards God.

5. And what about the mountain top view?  Or that epiphany experience in Arizona I described?  That is communion.  That is “echad”.  Echad is the Hebrew word for “one” as in “the LORD our God is one”.  That is coming before God with sincere desire and undivided attention to hear His voice, to feel His presence.

May it be your desire to remember Him throughout the times of brightness when life demands your time and attention.  He is always there for you.  And may it also be your blessing to experience the beauty and the perfection and the “wow” of His Word and His Son.

There’s a humorous scene in the movie “Dances with Wolves” in which Lt. John Dunbar (played by Kevin Costner) is past his initial confrontations with the Sioux and trying to communicate across a wide language barrier.  He tells the natives that his name is “John Dunbar” in slow deliberate speech.  The medicine man Kicking Bird makes an attempt at the name:  “Dumb Bear” he says.  Now we who are watching the show laugh at the irony of the meaning of those words in English.  Phonetically turned just a little, they make a funny joke.  But the lieutenant is quick to correct him, and with another try or two he gets it right: Dunbar.  Now I’m sure many of you have seen the movie.  Can you imagine how tiring it would have been to hear Kevin Costner called “Dumb Bear” for the rest of the picture? (and there’s a lot left from that point forward!)

So let’s look at another example of a name being turned phonetically just a little.  Only this time it’s real life and not the movies. 

Many years ago a baby boy was born and given a name by his father.  Since he was born into a culture that placed considerable value on the meaning of names, this was a very intentional name.  Now it wasn’t a name that the father had thought of himself, and actually he broke tradition because no one in his family had ever had the name he gave to his son.  But he was as certain about the appropriateness of the name as if God Himself had ordered it.  How disappointed the father would have been should his son have changed his name after he grew up!  But happily that didn’t happen.  No, he kept the same name.  It was a beautiful name, both phonetically in its sound and literally in its meaning.  Do you know the name? Yeshua.  Although some debate the specific pronunciation, it is most commonly said, “yah-SHOO-ah”.  Do you know the language from which it originates?  Hebrew.  Do you know what Yeshua means in Hebrew?  It means “God’s Salvation”.  Isn’t that cool?  Do you know who the baby boy was?  Here’s a hint:  “And she shall give birth to a Son, and you shall call His Name Yeshua for He shall save His people from their sins.” (Matt 1:21)  Yeah, you know who it is now, right?  It’s Jesus!  (Oi vay!)

Ok.  Next step.  We need to figure out how Yeshua turned into Jesus.  Actually it stopped along the morph highway at Iosus, which is a Greek phonetic attempt at the Hebrew name with the –us suffix tacked on because it was what the Greeks did for many words related to their gods (e.g. Zeus, Colossus, Olympus).  Then many many centuries later when the letter “J” was invented, some happy words got a fresh look.  Iosus became Jesus.  (I am seriously shortening and simplifying the history here.  You can find the complete details quite easily on the web.)

So here we are a couple thousand years later.  A zillion Bibles have been printed.  All the most popular versions I know of print the name of the Messiah as Jesus.  Do you have one that prints His Name as Yeshua?  Probably not, right?  If you do that’s great.  If you’d like to check one out, try the ISR version.  It actually prints his name in the Hebrew (which my word processor does not support or I could show you what it looks like!)  But hey, what’s in a name?  We know who we’re talking about, right?  Yes, right!  Sort of.  And this is where we come back to the movie.

Remember how “Dunbar” sounds similar to “Dumb Bear”?  But the meaning in English is totally different and even brings forth a laugh?  Do you know what word is the closest phonetic sounding word to Jesus in the Hebrew tongue?  It’s a short little word: sus.  It refers to an equestrian animal best known in English as the “horse”.  So if you really want a chuckle, try inserting “horse” into your favorite praise & worship songs where you would normally say “Jesus”.  Or how about popular slogans? “The Horse is the Reason for the Season.”  And then there’s: “WWHD: What Would the Horse Do?”

Now I hope you’re smiling right now.  I am saying all this in a good spirit of making a valid point, not trying to blaspheme the Name of my Messiah and Master.  And I’m not a “Sacred Namer” who doesn’t believe your prayers are heard unless you say “the Name” perfectly.  No, I’m just saying that out of respect for Him, out of love for Him, we should make the attempt to use the Name that He was given by His Father, the Creator, the God of the Universe.  Not a phonetically almost-equivalent.  If your name is Mark, would you mind if we called you Mork?  Or could we refer to Matt by the name of Mutt?  What about Stove instead of Steve?  Or Tammy instead of Timmy?  Or Crusty instead of Cristy?

So, what’s in a name?  A lot.  Most of us who own a dog or cat would correct a visitor who didn’t say the pet’s name right, and we would almost certainly be dismayed if a friend mispronounced our children’s names after they had been told what their names really were.  Now that you know what His Name is (and also what it isn’t), how will you respond?   

I had reallmy wanted to get my blogging carmeer off to a great start.  I pictured a lamunch that would givem my children gomod reason to madmire me like they did beforme they figured mout what a nut I was.  So tonight after everymone was tuckmed into their beds, I smat down at them lamptop with a little snack remady to punch out a coumple mentertaining and stimulating entrimes to start my new blog.  My wimfe and three moldest children have bemen blogging for months and I wanted tom catch ump to the pack.  Then I hit a hugme speed bumpm.  I knocked thme bowl mover which up to that pomint had been full of M&M’s.  They went evemrywhere including mall over the keybomard.  So now minstead of an insightfuml and humorous expermience to shamre I have been trying form an homur to get those little cmandies out of my laptop keyboard befmore the warmth of the promcessor melts them into goom.  Really I will dom a better job next timme, please believe mem.  I’ll get chimps without salsam!  Argh!  This is drimving me crazy.  Hold on a minmute, I’m gonna try shmaking it mupside down……… Hey. That’s better isn’t it?  Maybe I should have just done that back mat the bemginning.  Shoot.  There’s still some momre left.  Let me try it agamin……… Hello?  Any more in there?  The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog.  Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz*.  I think we’re good to go now!  Well, anyway that’s enough for this time.  Please come back again and I will have a real blog entry for you to enjoy.  Take care.  Hamsta la vistma!  Cramp. 

* This is the shortest sentence (at 31 letters) in the English language that has every letter in the alphabet.

Thanks for taking a little time to visit my blog.  I like to pretend that I'm an author trapped in the body of an engineer, so I hope you read and enjoy some of these posts.  Laugh, scowl, smile, or howl - comments are encouraged!

Why the handle "analog dude"?  Well I guess I'm one of those old school boys who grew up on vinyl LP's, playing board games, making model cars & planes, and creating drawings with pencils and markers.  I see the advance of the digital world and subsequent vanishing of the analog as the intellectual and spiritual equivalent of paving a field of flowers to make a parking lot for another strip mall.  Nonetheless, here I am typing to you all on a laptop.  But remember:  The American Indians weren't too fixed in their ways to ignore the advantages of the horse and rifle!

Looking forward to some good exchanges with you!

P.S. My 14-year old son designed my blog page.  Check out the link for NicholasP if you'd like him to make yours look really cool!