I saw the full moon tonight.

I saw it ensconced in a deep blue evening sky, illuminating the clouds from behind. For a few minutes, the universe was like a mobile hanging from the ceiling, and the beautiful moon a bluish ceiling lamp.

The whole landscape is bathed in silverblue light.

I could have stared forever, as the moon, an unimaginable disc stuck to heaven's ceiling, glowed with radiance in the haze of our atmosphere.

I have seen moonbows in the evening haze, and they are elusively spectacular, a nighttime radiance of color. But the full moon tonight -- oh!-- it was beautiful. This beauty would be hidden and empty without the light of the sun it reflects. And yet, the dark patches on the moon are part of its beauty. It is a speckled, burned up piece of rock, yet it glows with brilliance given it by the sun. And that is part of the miracle, a mottled grey core surrounded by a soft, smooth, radiant aegis of light.

We cannot look on the sun and retain our sight, but we can see the moon in all its brilliance and marvel at the power of the sun's light, that even in reflection it nearly blinds us.

And so it is with us humans, that Christians get to be moons of God's holiness and beauty. We are mottled, we are burned out chunks of rock that will never be a star, yet we are given light.

I could have watched all evening.

But I must sleep. Classes start tomorrow.