wonder and blessing

It was a little after 4:00 in the morning and Yoda and I are taking advantage of the pre-dawn stars and the quarter moon to take a walk. I am looking up at the little dipper and thinking about the runaway slaves who "followed the drinking gourd" of the big dipper which pointed to the North star of the little dipper in order to find their way to freedom. Yoda was lost in his smells and in my thoughts when we both heard the sound and saw the lights of the garbage truck coming up the road. I was annoyed because it interrupted our reverie but I stopped when I realized he was doing his job. I was doing my job of being a parson and he was doing his job of being a garbage man. Both of our jobs at times are similar as we both deal with the stuff of which people prefer not to deal.

Big Dipper pointing to the North Star of Little Dipper

As he passed by I waved a greeting - I guess a little like a half-hearted blessing.  I thought of all the other invisible people working at that moment. The nurses and techs on the third shift (or second shift if they are on 12 hour shifts)at the hospital, some of whom are my parishioners and who I don't get to see that often because they are hard at work dealing with people who get sick. I think of the policeman whose son was born a couple weeks ago and thought of him either working checking the buildings, like the church,  to make sure they are locked ( and who all too often call me and get me to come to lock the church back up in the middle of the night) or walking the floor with his child. I thought of the people working  in the all night stores in the second or third jobs in order to make ends meet- also some of my parishioners. The teachers who get up early to finish the lesson plan or to grade the papers or the students who have to finish writing those papers. All of these invisible people who don't have the leisure to look at the stars.

As I write this I offer a prayer of blessing for all of these people, some I know and most I do not but they are doing God's work in our cities and towns. May they know that they are faithful and find joy in their labor. As Augustine says: "People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." 

May we all be in wonder today under the cope of heaven.