Darkness: Stars
When I was in college, I spent a semester abroad in Madrid, Spain. One of the classes I took was in Anthropology, which included an overnight field trip to the Gredos Mountains in the region of Extremadura. Extremadura is in western Spain, bordering Portugal, mountainous and rural, and birthplace of most of Spain’s famous (infamous?) explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries. We spent the evening in the rural community of Navalguijo, where my anthropology professor had done his field work for his dissertation and where he still kept a house. One reason he kept us there until after dark was so that we could see the stars.
Even in other rural places I have been in, I have never seen so many stars. There has always been too much light pollution.
You need darkness to see stars. You need darkness to see the constellations and the maps that the ancients used to guide their way. In the dark, without bright moonlight, you can see meteors, comets, and the Milky Way. Closer to earth, only in the dark can you see fireflies glow and bioluminescent creatures. Whether looking at the sky, the ground, or water, you don’t get a full picture of nature without also seeing it at nighttime. Different animals come out. The earth cools off when it’s not facing the sun. During the day, a campfire is just a fire, but at night, it transforms into a place to eat a meal, stay warm, and an opportunity for camaraderie.
You need daytime and nighttime. If you focus on the day, you literally miss half of what’s around you. By creating artificial light, you miss what happens in the dark and what you can see in the dark. While human night vision is nowhere near as strong as some creatures’, we do have some night vision, some ability to see in low-light conditions. This ability is what pirates preserved by wearing eye patches. Pirates didn’t wear eye patches because they had lost an eye. They wore them so that when they went below deck, out of the bright sun, they could flip up the eye patch and not be completely blind. The eye that had been covered above deck could now see quite well in the dimness below deck. They were ready to switch from bright light to low light with minimal time to adjust.
We tend to think that if we’re not good at something, or can’t do something quickly, then we shouldn’t do it at all. Instead, use your night vision. Go outside on a clear night and look up. Or look down. Turn off the lights. You'll be surprised to discover just how amazing and active God's creation can be, even in the darkness.