it's called "I have an obsession with the stars."

sometimes, I look up at the stars and start to drown a little bit.
there is just something beautiful, something wonderful about them.
what would it be like to jump off the high dive and swim through the galaxies, sift the stars through my fingers, feel the planets move through my hair?

I think I love the stars because I love the One who created the stars. I think I love the stars because someday, I want to create them too.

I think I love the stars because they represent something new. well, not really new, because they've been around for thousands and millions and billions years, but new in the sense that they are always changing, being born and growing brighter and dying and then being born again.

you know, my life is changing a lot right now too. everything I thought I knew just ended, as fast as you could walk across a stage, which was almost faster than you could blink. it's as if twelve years of Sameness just walked out the door and I'm standing on the porch waving and crying and jumping up and down with excitement and tears are streaming down my face because I don't really want to say good bye, but at the same time I do because I'm ready for it. because this is what I've been preparing for. life. and now the time has come to actually live it and I'm not sure I'm ready but at the same time I am, because this is what I've been preparing for. you know, life.

I think I love the stars because they show me that there can still be light, even on the darkest night.

it seems like the world today is trying to smother out light: my light, your light, star light, Christ's light. but no matter how hard it tries, a lightbulb can't outshine every pinprick of light that shines in the velvety black canvas of night. and no matter how hard it tries, the world can't squish my little light, the one that is inside my heart, because even though it sometimes flickers, I promise you that I will never let it go out. it's the flame of truth. hope. confidence. testimony. and it's just going to keep on burning [Matthew 5:14-16].

I've learned something about myself lately, I mean, other than the fact that I love the stars and I think I should be a philologist when I "grow up" and that I'm not a huge fan of Nietzsche, even though he started out as a philologist. but anyway. I learned that I really love history, well duh, but that I really love family history. did you know that my eighth great-grandpa's name was Lars? and he had a son named Mogen Larsen who had a son named Lars Mogensen who had a son named Mogen Larsen who had a son named Lars Mogensen who had a son named Lars Larsen? I'm not even kidding. like, how cool is that? Lars lived in Herstedoster, Copenhagen, Denmark, but he joined the church, came to America, and five generations later, here I am.

"Does it make you wonder? Someday in the far future, when the Milky Way has turned another cosmic click, will someone carry a chair to your grave site and keep you company forever? Can you imagine someone loving you that much? Can I?" 

{one of my favorite books in the galaxy, Love, Stargirl}

does it make you wonder? maybe, when Lars was standing on the boat deck of the Minnesota watching his home disappear beneath the horizon, he too looked up and fell in love with the stars. maybe he found strength in the tiny pinpricks of light millions of miles away, because maybe he too found comfort in the thought of an all-knowing, all-powerful Being watching over him. so maybe, in a way, the stars are in my blood.

it makes me wonder. someday, after another cosmic click, will someone love me that much? will someone remember me, and how much I love books and rhetorical devices and logical fallacies and Kant, even though I don't really understand him, and Thoreau, even though I don't really understand him either, and bare feet and best friends and chocolate and words and hugs and stars? will someone lay a ribbon of the milky way at my grave, instead of a wreath of roses? will someone still care?

dear Lars. and Mogen. and Johanne. and Bodil. and Leonard. and Hannah. and William. and back and back and back. I do care. 

and I'll keep reading and learning and discovering and sharing, and maybe I'll find more stars that we can love together. and the best part is, we'll have eternity to do it :) and when we get to heaven, don't expect me to be floating on a cloud somewhere playing a lyre. oh no. I'll be dancing through the milky way, shaking stardust out my hair and sending comets spinning off my eyelashes.