Last evening, while home alone, I took on the challenge of decorating an outside tree with strands of lights. The tree stands about 15 feet high. I had no ladder and I’m barely 5 foot 8 inches tall. My strategy was simple. Throw the lights as high as possible and then adjust as needed by yanking and pulling the chord from the ground. The first strand was simplest. I threw it once and it hung like a pearl necklace around the Princess of Wales.
The rest of the work did not go so well. It’s hard to actually throw a strand of 100 Christmas lights with precision. And once thrown in the top of a tree, pulling the lights out is about as easy as freeing a fishing line that’s been thrown onto a bushy bank. If you yank hard enough you will find 100 tiny lights flying at your face in the dark.
Eventually it dawned on me that I should tie a weight to the end of the strand so that I could toss it higher and with accuracy. I used a full water bottle. A miracle happened when I threw the bottle the first time. I aimed dead center of the tree, and the tree shifted 10 feet to the left while the bottle was in flight. I didn’t even graze a single limb. The bottle soared like a Bret Farve pass, long and deep, until it crashed on the concrete driveway.
I spoke to the lights with words that should never be uttered. I cursed the bottle, the throw, and the tree. Whatever Christmas cheer is, that moment was its polar opposite! Assessing the damage, I plugged the lights into a socket and half the strand would not light up. 7 of the bulbs were broken. I took the time to replace the broken bulbs, however, the strand was still only half-lit. (Some might say that’s a metaphor of my life–a “half-lit strand.”)
But I soldiered on until I had manipulated most of the lights onto the tree. Kim arrived from a bit of shopping at which time I told her that the tree looked like something out of Charlie Brown’s Christmas. She insisted it was lovely. I disagreed too emphatically at which time she quite correctly informed me that I took all the joy out of Christmas. I thought about speaking to her as I had the bottle, the lights, and the tree, but came to my senses, remembering that unlike the bottle or the tree, she speaks back. I went back to my work.
Finally, I completed the task and was actually satisfied with the result. I stepped back to admire the creation. 600 lights (less half a strand) brightly shinning. Then I noticed the countless lights in the background, billions of stars hung throughout the cosmos, galaxies, strung on nothing, but each keeping it’s place with mathematical precision.
What sort of God is it that can speak the worlds into existence, needing neither a water bottle or electricity to get the job done? I was exhausted after 600 lights and my universe consisted of one tree. And I broke some stuff in the process.
Who is this God that dazzles us with stars just because He can?
Ben O
