The stars come out each night to remind us of greater things. If we pause our daily toils and gaze at the sky, counting the stars we see, we briefly leave our regular sphere of existence and reach out to a place and a phenomenon that are beyond our grasp.
When we stop to consider the stillness of the night—in the country, especially, but also in the city—we remember, for a moment, some ancient connection that speaks to our souls and brings to life the flicker of order that pervades the universe and encircles us all in a great net of intricacy and quiet.
For those of us who desire a sense of meaning in our lives but fail to latch onto anything substantial, fail to be fed with something that satisfies—it is useful to send up our prayers, our hopes, our worries, and our doubts to the nighttime sky, reassured that our troubles will not be too big for something so vast and so deep.
For only when we believe that there is a vessel greater than ourselves—capable of holding all the cares and duties of life without bursting at the seams—can we relax our grip on life (which can sometimes become a chokehold) and lose a bit of ourselves to a way that is grander, more meaningful, more complete.