Shooting Stars Only

Three years ago, I had a dream.

In the dream, I woke up. I was conscious of myself lying in the high grass of a backyard that I have never been in before. The backyard was mine. I was aware it was a dream, and I had a great feeling of peace and expectation. The dark night was all around me and I knew my family was with me, some lying in the grass and some inside the house. I was staring up at the empty, black sky.

Suddenly the cosmos burst into life. Stars, and galaxies and meteorites starting dancing and swirling and floating across the sky in a cavalcade of illuminations. It’s so hard to describe the beauty that I can close my eyes right now and still see. It was heartbreakingly beautiful. It was like the painting, “Starry Night” from Van Gogh had come alive and was a cosmic dance being performed for myself only. Shooting starts streaked by the sky and galaxies of light swirled and fluttered around like schools of fish, changing direction in a instant and circling and dancing around each other.

My soul was in awe. I stared up in the amazement of a child looking at a wonder he knew he could never fully comprehend.

Suddenly, more and more of the starts started streaking across the sky, turning into shooting stars and blazing out off of the cosmic stage. As following a master cue, all at once the whole sky of stars streaked across the sky in a bright grand finale of lights and long tails and burned out together in a blaze. In another heartbeat, the sky was empty and dark again and I lay there in the grass, continuing to stare into the sky with tears in my eyes and the song the stars danced to in my heart.

And I woke up. The tears were still in my eyes.

I wrote a blog a few weeks later about being a shooting star.

I had read a short story that had really impacted me. In it, the protagonist was being haunted by the memory of his deceased wife, who was taken young. He had a reoccurring dream where he boarded a plane and went to sit in the window seat, but was barred from it due to a sign that simply said, “Shooting Stars Only”. Instead his wife sat in it, and during the flight the emergency door opened and she shot out like a star, streaking across the sky and was gone.

I began to think I understood what it was to be a shooting star. It was a time of violent transition for me and my family. It was a time where we had to leave right when we were hoping to be settled. It was a time where I was morning the fact that to those new and near to me, I would only prove to be a shooting star in their lives.

That was a true statement.

It was also a time where we were a little lost as to where to go next. The gypsy lifestyle was far from being shiny and enchanting to us anymore. We were beginning plans of settling down into a life where roots could be planted. I was broken and burned out, like a star that had shone bright and then extinguished. I wrote about this. Just this morning, in a journey of nostalgia, I came across that post, and the response from my friend, Jason.

“I keep telling you to move to Rochester…. I followed my wife here and now it’s my home. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to say goodbye to anybody.”

In many ways he was so right, but in one way, he was wrong. Soon enough he would have to say goodbye to someone, and so would I.

There is a quote from “Alice in Wonderland” that has always been near and dear to me. As Alice tried to make her way through the strange and unfamiliar landscape, she came across one of the oddest characters with some sage advice.

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response.‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”

So, I took the road to Rochester. Turns out it was the right road to take. It was nothing short of a miraculous place for my family and myself. A “land between” but with a rugged beauty and peace that I can never forget. And yet, it too was a shooting star.

I have always mourned being a shooting star, being lost in a landscape and never knowing where home would be. This morning, however something changed for me.

Last night, I stayed in a cheap hotel overlooking the Atlanta freeway. I’m on a road trip to a place where I love and have many memories, so nostalgia is always deep on these trips. As I opened my curtains this morning to the dirt and drudgery of the urban landscape, my mind started singing the song from Rich Mullins, “Here in America”

And I’ve seen by the highways on a million exit ramps Those two-legged memorials to the laws of happenstance Waiting for four-wheeled messiahs to take them home again But I am home anywhere if You are where I amAnd if you listen to my songs I hope you hear the water falling I hope you feel the oceans crashing on the coast of north New England I wish I could be there just to see them, two summers past I was And the Holy King of Israel loves me here in America”

I, too, was looking at the highway by an exit ramp

I, too was knowing and dwelling on the laws of happenstance

In a few months, I, too will again see the oceans crashing on the coast of north New England, and I can hardly wait.

And I, too, am home anywhere when He is where I am.

I was reminded of something my wife once told me that will always haunt me with its cold and brutal honesty…

…“You know, Kevin… eventually everyone leaves you.”

I love and hate the poetry of those vicious words, yet offer one amendment to it…

…“You know, Kevin… eventually everyone leaves you or you will leave them.”

Which simply means that all of us are eligible to sit in the seat marked, “Shooting Stars Only”

That truth use to bring me despair, but it doesn’t anymore.

This morning I was reminded of what it felt like to wake up in that tall grass, feeling the peace of night engulfed around me. I was reminded of the sense that I was in a place that was mine, and close to those I loved. I was reminded that I was in the place that I wanted to be.

This morning I was reminded of that night in that dream when I looked up and witnessed the whole universe alive in its creation. I was reminded that it danced and swirled around in beauty that was a gift that only a Creator God could give.

And yes, when it was done, it all turned into shooting stars. But I remembered that I didn’t wake up mourning the fact that all the stars burned out and the sky was empty once again.

… I smiled that I got to see them dance!