the moon, the sun and the stars

 There is a place to see stars but it's a long trip.

I had always wanted to go to Australia but my husband said no every time because of the distance. But when your youngest son was getting married to the perfect woman by the Paterson River in New South Wales, well, 17 hours on board is nothing. The farm where my daughter-in-law grew up is four hours from Sydney and that country is so wide open that it stuns.There I was that first night gazing up at a sky so filled with stars that I was dazzled and could hardly speak. Then I began looking for the Southern Cross, that array of stars that is on the Australian flag. I never could spot it but that night is engraved in my mind for the sheer amazement of it.

The moon landing happened 50 years ago this July, that place so very far away where an American flag was planted which still amazes me when I think of it. For millions of years that satellite of the earth was looked at by countless humans with never a thought of getting there. In my lifetime, a man stood on its surface.

Of course the sun is an absolute necessity for our lives to be sustained on earth, but I must say that at the end of every August in Georgia, I am bone tired of it. Just give me a morning cloud cover and some rain, please. It might be coming.

When I woke up with these three words this morning it seemed so unusual given the past few themes, but the Spirit comes through each time and so I will saunter over to a dream that I had whose meaning become clear later. Bear with me.

.....It is raining at night and I am alone. I am shuffling along a street in near panic. I stumble into Corky's Bar, to where the drinks are served and ask the bartender : "Where am I ?" He says: "Main Street." I tell him that he doesn't understand, I don't know where I am .By now I am crying. He says:  "Oh , Staten Island. And if you have no one  to help you get home, go down the street to the Catholic School, Stella Maris, Our Lady Star of the Sea, they'll help you." I go off with new confidence and the dream ends.

That dream was so real that I looked up the bar.There is one named that in Manhattan and the school/church is in Queens. But it was that dream and a few others that brought Mary, her rosary and her guidance to my life. "Mary, Star of the Sea, guide over troubled waters, pray for us."