The Three Sisters
In 1997 I could not read the stars. I recognized no human track or sign in the night sky. I saw the heavens with the eyes of a child.
Our third daughter was born that winter. We had decided three was our limit, so I was not going to have the son I had dreamed of. Those were strange days because I experienced grief and joy in equal measures. I had a vision of a little boy with a baseball glove who hung his head and turned away from me.
One night I noticed three little stars all in a row. I stopped and stared. “The Three Sisters”, I whispered to myself. I had another vision, this time of three women meeting for tea. They stopped their conversation and smiled at me.
In those days I went outside almost every night to look at The Three Sisters. I began to notice a red star that was always in a different place in the sky. It seemed to move across the constellations, on a journey all its own. I puzzled over this. Something seemed sad about the little star with no home. I began calling it, “The Little Lost Boy”.
Every night the Little Lost Boy moved closer to the horizon. I hated to see him go, but eventually I had to say goodbye. And so I did.
My stargazing was so innocent in those days - so childlike and so helpful to me.
Then I bought The Audubon Society's “Field Guide to the Night Sky”. I pored over it and discovered that what I was calling “The Three Sisters” was really Orion’s belt. I also found that “The Little Lost Boy” was Mars. The planets do not have a set location in the sky, but seem to move in and out of the constellations. He wasn’t lost at all.
The winter constellations became known to me, and I counted them as friends. Orion the strong with Lepus the hare at his feet and red-eyed Taurus over his shoulder. The teacup Pleiades, faithful Canis Major and the watchful Gemini twins. Capella the she-goat with her three kids. Leo the lion rising in the east to chase them all away.
I wanted to know these things. I wanted to read the human language of the constellations. I gained knowledge, and the knowledge was good.
I also lost something. Had I known the constellations, I never would have seen The Three Sisters and The Little Lost Boy. I would never have found that gentle path through and beyond my sadness.
The fruit of the tree of knowledge nourishes the soul, but it has a price. Once you have tasted it, you can never see with the eyes of a child again.
Pick up a book and look at the letters. You cannot see them as a child sees them. As soon as you look at the page, the letters will group themselves into words and phrases. They seem to have a life of their own. Once we come to understand these symbols, they are forever imprinted upon us. Our mind is molded by our knowledge.
Here's something fun. Turn the book upside down and look at the letters. It's like becoming a child again.
I cannot turn the sky upside down. The constellations jump into my vision and the planets are not as mysterious now that I know their names. In some ways the stars are closed to me now. I read them better, but they speak to me less.
There are nights when I look at the sky and wish I did not know. I wish I could find The Little Lost Boy, but he is gone forever, swallowed up by Mars.
I’m intrigued by this finding and losing. I wonder about this trade-off between knowledge and vision, this price we pay to read our world.
Jesus said, “Unless you become like a child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
I stand in my yard and speak to the sky. "What did you mean by that, Jesus?"
"Why would you ask something so impossible of me?"
The Preacher
11:27:43 AM 
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