God is in the wind and wide open spaces

I just had a moment. It's a little after 3:00 in the morning, which seems to be a part of my peak creative time, and I just went out for one last cigarette before I go to bed. I stuck my head out the garage door and looked at the sky above the backyard of the house I grew up in to see the beautiful prairie sky resplendent with stars. Stars the likes of which you could not even hope to glimpse when living in a city the size of Vancouver, such as I do.

I decided to have my smoke in the backyard, then, noticing that the temperature was nowhere near as cold as I'd expect it to be during one of the coldest months of a bitter Saskatchewan winter. In fact, there was even water on the floor of the garage that had melted off of the wheels of the car. Granted, it is marginally warmer in the garage, but only by the slightest margin.

At any rate, standing under that massive sky, looking at a spectacle I grew up with and knew and loved so well, yet seem to have forgotten nonetheless, I felt awe. I felt God. Sounds cheesy, I know, but I'm a prairie boy, and this is the sort of stuff that interfaces so much more succinctly with my soul than anything I could experience in a city full of lights and noise and concrete, hedged in on all sides by trees or mountains or water. I could feel the breeze, and it was light, and not cold. It was reassuring. So I said a quick, simple prayer, consisting of regret, thankfulness, and a plea for help. And just as the plea for help escaped my lips, literally as I spoke it, I saw a star fall briefly from heaven, a sight I've not seen in I don't even know how long. And that made me feel hope. And love. And God.

God is in the wind and wide open spaces.