“The Company of the Moon and Star” by Rev. Max Blalock
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them? Psalm 8: 3-4 (NRSV)
I don’t have a clue how grace works, but twenty years ago on a rural stretch of interstate my Mother and I experienced it. We didn’t know it yet, but we were already a few years into my mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s. Something was wrong, but we didn’t know what it was. Mother and I were on our way home to Alabama from North Carolina. We had spent our usual Thanksgiving with my sister and her family, and being the youngest, single, and still living in Alabama, I was the one responsible for looking out for Mother. We left in the afternoon, so by the time we were cruising through the hills of Tennessee, we were underneath a night sky with a few scattered clouds. The almost-full moon was perched right outside mother’s window, a star at its side, and Mother was fascinated. Every few moments she said, “Do you see how the moon and star are traveling with us?” In response I mustered all the fascination and wonder I could. It was then I realized that our roles were slowly and inevitably being reversed. It was a magical, graceful, sorrowful journey, a microcosm of the years yet to come. But it is the one that stays with me, more than any others, where in the midst of so much sadness, uncertainty, and fear, we weren’t alone. There was a fascinating, mysterious grace with us on the journey home. As we enter into this season where we remember another family on a journey, not knowing the end, may we be ever mindful of the Grace that accompanies us along our journey as well.
God, help us know that we are not alone, no matter what the journey. Amen.
Rev. Max Blalock, Campus Minister at The Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist Campus Ministry at The College of William and Mary
email: mwblalock@wm.edu
phone: 757-229-6832
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