Not Much Time Left to Live

Brandon Heath loaned me his Harley while I'm here in Nashville. We worked overnight last night, so I slept late and then took the bike out through the hills and ended up at a high view where Vanderbilt University has placed a small observatory to study the stars. I left my phone back at the house, and my computer and any books or work. The people at Vanderbilt took the shell off the top of one of the old telescopes and suspended it from the trees, over a concrete picnic table. The trees were past orange and dead leaves laid over the crest of the hill so squirrels scurrying from tree to tree sounded like they were trapped inside potato-chip bags. I think maybe God had a hell of a good time making that place, scooping the smooth hills up in the palm of his hands, scattering the seeds, breathing life into the critters. I wondered if He ever longed to come back to that place, or whether He remembered it at all. Maybe He'll go strolling through the woods of Tennessee some day and remember it like a line in a novel He wrote thousands of years ago, and it'll all come back to him, what He meant by it and why He thought it was beautiful at the time. And maybe He'll be delighted and surprised to see they put a picnic table under the trees, and smile at the telescope that has always been trying to find Him. I am really enjoying Tennessee. It's lovely here in November.