Stars & Life

Last night I was at a friend's party when some of us wandered outside to look at the stars. Aside from the fact that stars are beautiful, I saw my first shooting star. I'm not sure how I can love looking at stars so much and not have ever seen one before, but that's pretty irrelevant. The night sky is simply breathtaking and most people know that. I was struck by how small and insignificant I am by the beauty and sheer magnitude of it all. Think about it... I occupy a small percentage of land on my friend's property, not to mention the city, state or world, and my life will only come into contact with a limited number of people in my lifetime. Even if my life ends up being big, by the world's standards, and everyone in America knows who I am, throughout the course of history I will be gone. Like a star that burns out, I could continue to have an impact, but it will eventually be gone. I live on Earth for a small fraction of its existence, and my life while on that Earth is yet another small fraction of all life. So, when taking in statistical importance: my life is nothing.
And yet, by the simple fact that I stopped and noticed the beauty of stars much older, and some younger, than myself, I was contradicting the observation that a single being is nothing. A majestic sky full of stars would not be one without each individual star. You cannot look at all of the stars at the same time, so one must observe a single star or a small group of them at a time. And when I realized that I was looking at one star, I wondered: where is that star? How old is it? Has it already burnt out? and then it hit me. We are all stars (as we've probably heard a million times). We can appreciate the beauty of the whole sky, or the whole world, but we can only really observe a few stars at a time. Who we spend our time with and if we wonder enough to really get to know them is what brings a little more beauty to this human experience. So while I may not be the North Star, I am a star just the same, and I know that how I live my life can be a small part of the picture of a larger Beauty.