Wonder as Revelation A Third Quarter Moon Devotional

As the Third Quarter Moon rises, we walk the Via Positiva—awakening to the sacred in all things.

Invocation

The word is spoken: Light.
The moon sings an echo,
"Shine and shadow,
dark and bright,
gathered in wisdom's hands.
Taste and see the Spirit's hope,
joined as one in our Earth home,
rooted deep within our holy lands."

Awake, O child of star and sea and soil,
speak the holy words from our souls,
sharing in grace, and awe behold
as the wisdom of our world unfolds. 

The Sacred Moment

Today, the third quarter moon rises, opening the middle way between light and darkness. May we feel the call to awe, to cosmic hospitality, to the art of savor, and to the kin-dom of God here and now. In the sacred light of the Third Quarter Moon, we walk the path of the Via Positiva: the way of wonder, the dance of delight, courage to speak the living Word of God into form. Our souls ache for blessing and community as we gather to taste the sweetness of life and share the joy with each other.

This is a moon to awaken, to bless, to behold.

Theme: Wonder as Revelation

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

Psalms 19:1-5

As we watch the shadow of the earth crawl across the moon, there are several ways we can imagine it. We can see it for what it truly is: the moon is moving behind the earth and we're casting a shadow upon it. Or we can open our mythical, metaphorical eyes and see the light being gathered for other uses. The heavens declare the glory of God, the One who is, the One Life, being itself.

When we look up into the heavens and see the light retreating from the moon, I find it helpful to imagine that the light is being collected by the earth, that we are gathering it up so that we can see the glory and have the glory bursting forth within us. When we look into the skies, they proclaim to us a deep mystery. We hear them speak, but they don't use words. There's no speech, no sound.

This reminds me of a wonderful passage from Torah. In Exodus 20:18, the people at Mount Sinai are said to have seen the voice. Now, this is a poetic expression, and many English translations interpret "voice" as "thunder." But you don't see thunder; you see lightning. When we look up into the heavens, when we behold the beauty of nature, we see the voice. The voice of the One Life speaking through all things. As we learn to see the words, we understand that awe, wonder, and beauty are forms of revelation.

As we stare deep into the beauty of the sky, the stars twinkling overhead, the clouds moving between us and them, and the radiant glow of the moon in its many hues and shades, we see the glory of life. Because God is life, God is love, God is the very ground of being on which we all live. The greatest art that we can learn in the Via Positiva is to recapture the ability to savor, enjoy, experience, and dig deep into all of the magic that's present in the moment. To feel the glory, see the glory, and hear the glory as it shines through those pinpricks in the sky.

The light of the moon, the caress of the wind, the babbling of the brook, the rush of the river, the stability of the earth: all these things resonate within us. We feel the rivers of blood coursing through our veins, the thunderstorm in our mind as electrical sparks carry thoughts from one side of this beautiful machine to the other, and the stability of our bones framing and holding us up.

We are a microcosm of the earth, and the earth is a microcosm of the solar system. The solar system is a microcosm of the galaxy, and the galaxy is a microcosm of the broader universe. It's like a fractal, sharing the same pattern on smaller and smaller scales and grander and grander scales. Scales so far beyond our comprehension that we don't have words for them.

We look at the beauty contained in the simplicity and complexity of a cell and feel the awe of it. The heavens declare the glory of God. The trees declare the glory of God. The cells in your body declare the glory of God. That glory is the one life, the one existence we share with all of them.

The passage ends: "It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course." This is the power of the stars and the message they bring to us: the courage to go out like a champion and run our course, to live our lives.

Like a bridegroom coming from his chamber, it is time for the wedding, for the merger, for the blessed union between us and the cosmos: living hand in hand with nature and the world around us. Sometimes thinking like that can make us feel small, and in many ways, we are small. But the true glory of God, seen in the stars through this wordless revelation of wonder and awe, is that any of it is here at all.

We take for granted our existence. We take for granted the fact that anything is. We neglect the basic goodness, empathy, and joy that we find in this interbeing. In the grand scheme of things, it's hard to tell where one thing ends and another begins because everything is atoms. We only start to see the difference at certain scales and concentrations. We look at the stars and see our cousins. We look at the nebulas and see our ancestors. This can be metaphorical and spiritual, but it's also the truth. The hydrogen born in the Big Bang is the hydrogen burning in the stars and flowing as water in the clouds, rivers, and us.

We are not only stardust come to life; we are the spark of creation come to life. So when you look up into the sky, whether you see clouds, the beautiful blue haze of our atmosphere scattering the light of the sun, or a heaven filled with stars, remember that we are all one and connected in the one life. We are all one and connected in joy, in peace, and in the great hospitality that is interbeing. Embrace that oneness. Embrace that wholeness and know that we are never alone. We are universes unto ourselves, inextricably linked and connected in such deep ways, one to another and with all things.

Practice

In Exodus, they saw the thunder. In Psalms, the skies speak without words. What might we perceive if we stop trying to explain? If we stopped, even for a moment, worrying? We can take mindfulness breaks, or we can work this form of listening into our way of living.

To learn this way of thinking, start with a simple practice: This week, choose to listen with your eyes and see with your spirit. What does that mean? Watch until you feel an inner knowing. You don’t have to put it into words. Often we feel a stirring like we would if we heard a piece of music. It might be an intuition to shift focus or direction.

Take time to:

• Watch the clouds move without naming shapes.

• Listen to birdsong as if it were Scripture.

• Let a tree’s presence be a kind of prayer.

• See the stars as a choir and listen to their music.

Let the world be its own liturgy.
Let your breath be the Amen.

Closing Blessing

Now the moon is waning.
She dims, but does not disappear.
She does not retreat in shame,
but enters the darkest depths.

The light we have, it is enough,
we can see what’s speaking clearly.
The darkness and the light,
share this table with us.

Awe blesses joy.
Joy greets delight.
Delight savors.

For More:

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