The Galaxy

Last Sunday, I took the girl I mentor through Kinship to Kovac’s Planetarium, the world’s fourth and largest mechanical globe planetarium. What a cool place!

When you drive up to it, all you see from the outside is an average size pole building. Nothing too exciting. Even when you first walk in the door, there are a few displays of planets and moons, a telescope, but again nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that you couldn’t find at the school library or even in a lot of people’s basements.

Then you go in the globe itself and the first thing you notice is how much bigger it looks on the inside. Then the lights go off and all you see are the hundreds of stars overhead. Though they are only 22 feet above, they look as if they were light years away. Finally, the globe starts turning slowly around you. You get to witness an entire night worth of stars in a matter of minutes.

What an amazing thing! Living in the countryside of northern Wisconsin, I am privileged to be able to go outside on a cloudless night and view all those countless stars. It feels as if I could reach out my hand and pull them down.

The most amazing thing though is that God created every single one of those stars, those planets, the galaxies we see over head at night. He created all the heavens and earth. And He took as much care in creating each of us as He did when he made each star.

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Psalm 8:3-4 (New Living Translation)