Fantasmic And The Forgotten

If you had seen me yesterday, then you would have been at Disneyland. The place where even miserly curmudgeons can find something to smile about. And if you had seen me at night, then I would have been watching their fireworks show entitled "Fantasmic." I shared the oo's and ah's of the crowd as we collectively had our eyes burned by the fiery palette of man-made conflagrations.

The lights were alluring, but I escaped their siren call long enough to peer back over my illuminated shoulder to the shadows behind it. I merely wanted to see the crowds, to watched dazed reactions and smiles pepper children's faces. But I was interrupted. It was another light, an older one. The moonbeam ran down to earth to strike my eye and make me remember.

The Greeks used to call her Selene, but she was around before Alexander ever cut down the Gordian knot. She's has seen Adam in Eden, Noah on his ark, and Jesus kneeling in Gethsemane. She gently lifts up and sets down 326 million trillion gallons of water in the ocean's every day (that's 326 with 18 zeros behind it). She rises about 240,000 miles above the earth, which is about 500,000 times higher than the highest fireworks. And tonight, she patiently waits her turn. She is not threatened by the temporary blaze of a fading firework - her light will last. She waits, with her silver mirror-rays cutting through the haze of her competitor's leftovers. They may burn bright for a moment, scarring our retinas, but she has shone bright for millennia, scarring men's emotions.
She's marvelous, but she's so self-effacing.

Selene puts her finger to my lips and tells me "Hush. No oo's or ah's for me. I'm only a signpost. Raise your eyes higher than the sky and marvel at Someone Greater." And so, among the gasps of the audience, I whisper a breath of praise to Selene's Maker, the God who thought up light and darkness and color, and who gave us eyes to see it.