For When There Is Fear

 

"I will always have fear, but I need not be my fears, for I have other places within myself from which to speak and act." - Parker Palmer

"More than anything, fear blinds..." - Mark Nepo

To be a person

of faith, is to consent

to life lived blind as a bat,

to be a people of light

walking in darkness.

Faith will teach you

what you need to know

about soaring at night,

listening for the echo

of your own prayers

reverberating back to you.

The way forward is revealed,

always, in relation to the

place where you are.

- K. Chripczuk

I have felt a heaviness of fear lately. Fear for my not-old-enough-to-be-vaccinated-yet children who are back in school. Fear that schools will not be able to stay open as the Delta variant sweeps through. Fear of the life choices I've made - the way they've produced their own unyielding realities. Fear for the level of chaos, death, and destruction rampant in the world today. Maybe you have been feeling it too?

Yesterday, my thirteen-year-old son said it feels like the world is falling apart. My fifteen-year-old daughter replied, "It always feels like to world is falling apart."

He is right. She is right. It is both - the falling apart and the fear of falling apart and the reality that both are and ever shall be. And, so, we acknowledge the fear that is with us, like the sleeping cat in the chair beside me.

But, as Palmer says, we don't have to speak from that place. We don't have to live from there either. While fear may be present and it is not good to pretend it isn't so, it also can be a blinding and binding place to live from. As so, we're invited to step out, even in the midst of great darkness. To beat our wings and soar as though even darkness cannot separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Or, to put it another way, the darkness cannot separate us from the love of God that is with us and for us.

So, name your fears Little Ones, then set them down to rest on the table or chair beside you. Do not be afraid to step out into this dark night, for you were made to shine.

With love & joy,

Kelly

Origami and God (Fold, Unfold, Refold Again)

Each of my boys has discovered origami sometime between their sixth and seventh year of life.  It always begins with fortune tellers and airplanes, then progresses to boats and paper hats.  Soon, every surface of the house is littered with folded scraps of white copy paper.  Eventually, familiar patterns lose their thrill and we head to the library searching for new patterns to master.  
  

Harder patterns, though, require adult assistance.  Inevitably, I’m called to assist a frustrated child in deciphering vague diagrams and tricky folds.  This, I do, kneeling on the floor by the wood stove with an anxious, eager child peering over my shoulder. 

“Mom!  I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do,” they cry.

“Ok, let me see,” I say.

They want me to be able to look at the picture once and tell them what to do.  But, I need to begin at the beginning, to feel the paper moving through its motions beneath my fingers.    

I follow the patterns step-by-step: fold, unfold, refold again.  Even though I know the desired outcome, the path to completion’s often far from direct.  Jumping ahead is not advisable, so I stay in the moment working slowly, one fold at a time.

Some patterns begin with several steps of folds and creases that are then, one by one, undone.  These folds are preparatory, lining the page with creases that serve as landmarks for the steps ahead.  It would be a tempting but misleading to mistake one of these preparatory folds for a final fold. 

Sometimes I think this may be how God works in our lives – not that our lives are paper, manipulated by God into an unforeseen shape – but every life is filled with folds, some relating directly to the final goal, others only serving as markers along the path.  So much suffering comes from mistaking one from the other – pegging our lives, our identity on something that will, shortly, be unfolded to make way for something else. 

The problem is, from my human perspective, I can’t readily tell the difference between final folds and preparatory folds.  Even the final outcome remains unclear – what are we working toward here, God? A jumping frog? A peaceful crane?

The truth is, I'm not sure God cares nearly as much as I do about the difference between unfolds and final folds, about final outcomes and destinations.  God may be something more like a child, thrilled with the feel of pliable paper, delighting in the joy of shared discovery.

Knowing this, maybe we can learn to move lightly and freely through life, turning and folding, shaped in each moment by what is, rooted in the humility of not knowing, and a deep trust in the goodness of the One in whose hands we rest.  We are being turned, crease by crease, into works of beauty and wonder beyond what we could ever imagine.  This is what redemption means, this folding and unfolding, moving forward, always, toward wholeness.  

Honey Bees in Advent

Each bee senses that her one obligation is to give the smallest motion of her flight muscles to the collective work of keeping the queen and the colony’s honey stores warm.  The whole hive knows they survive only if they shiver together. 

Some of them in the shivering cluster will die of old age.  Had they hatched in the flowering season, their labor for the hive’s survival – harvesting nectar and pollen from as many as two thousand flowers a day – would have killed them in four weeks or less, their wings worn to nubbins.  But hatched on the cusp of winter, they may live six months.  They will know only the dark hive, the press of their sisters’ bodies.  They will never fly, never fall into a flower.  They give their lives to shivering together in the dark, the tiny repetitive gestures of each, added together, a music beyond our hearing, sustaining a future for the community.

- from “Honey Bee” in All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings by Gayle Boss

My kids buzzed around the dining room table covered with a crowd of mismatched candles.  Darkness deepened outside the window and the wood stove breathed its warm breath in the far corner as we read Gayle Boss’s description of how honey bees endure winter. 

The bees, huddled in the hive, ‘shiver’ their tiny flight muscles, located just above their wings, to create life-saving warmth. 

“One honey bee shivering her flight muscles does not make much heat.  But twenty thousand, huddled together, shivering, can keep the queen and the colony’s honey supply at their core a tropical ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit, even as blizzard winds, inches away, flail. . .”

Wow.  This was impressive, we all agreed.  But then, Boss went on to describe the bees, “hatched on the cusp of winter” who will, quite possibly, never see the outside of the hive.  Those bees that “give their lives shivering together in the dark.”

“What?!” we said.  “Can you even imagine?” we asked. 

Then we prayed and argued (as always) about who would get to blow out the candles.

//

This past week – between an ailing car, a dying washing machine, and some questionable medical results - we had our own little season of stress.  It felt like winter was here and, with it, darkness both deep and wide.  My husband and I wondered how to keep our hope, our faith, from freezing over while the ordinary blizzards of life beat against our little hive. 

Messaging with our Pastor, he mentioned the passages for Sunday’s sermon spanned five hundred years between Isaiah’s prediction of salvation and John the Baptist’s proclamation. “God delivers,” he wrote, “just as promised . . . five hundred years earlier . . .”   

//

This is what I thought of when we read about the winter bees – all those people, shivering together in darkness, keeping faith alive in the hope that someday hope would become reality.  Five hundred years of generations lighting candles, telling stories, waiting, watching for the moment when the world would tilt toward new rays of light and life.

I thought about my own faith, so quick to cool when the waiting is long, so short-sighted and dependent on knowing in the here and now.  What can I learn from those bees, made for spring breezes and blossoms?  Does the dream of a future they cannot even imagine and will never taste keep them alive?  And, just as important, who is shivering still, in the darkness now?  How can I partner with those still waiting, working, for light and life that has come and is still yet to come?

//

Our winter passed fairly quickly – a friend delivered a washing machine this Monday and I did up the waiting piles of laundry with a welcome sigh of relief.  John’s sister and father worked together to gift us with a new-to-us car, one much newer and nicer than any we’ve ever owned. 

Crisis averted, thanks be to God.

Still, I think about those bees, and the reply I sent my Pastor last week.  “I’ve been thinking,” I wrote, “that faith is something like the belief that everything will turn out better than you thought it could, but different than you expected, coupled with the acceptance that the thing you have been longing for, the thing you hoped for most, may not happen in your own lifetime."  

I imagine there were times (and are times still) when this description of faith would not sit well with me. As an intellectual prospect, it seems both valid (biblical) and also terribly unsettling.  But faith is rarely warmed by intellectual assent.  When I wrote those words to my Pastor, I knew them to be true, by the golden glow of something deep in my heart.  Like the bees, I know now this is my job, to give my life to keeping that golden center warm and soft, no matter what the weather may bring.

We Were Robbed and It Was Good (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

If I were to characterize Jesus' ministry, it would be to refocus people away from a sin focus and onto a life focus.  Where you give your focus, you give your energy.  - Vern Hyndman

Wednesday my husband came home early to take our daughter to the dentist and work on installing a long-awaited dishwasher in our home.  Working to frame a cabinet around the hand-me-down appliance, he trotted out to the garage to cut a piece of wood. 

The counter in the wood shop was empty, no saw.  He looked around in confusion, walked around hunting.  We’re not always very organized with our tools and, after a while, he asked the kids and me whether we’d seen or moved his equipment.  The more he looked around, the more things he found missing.  Reality dawned slowly, someone broke into our garage and stole several of my husband’s large wood working tools – a chop saw, a drill press, an electric drill, among other smaller things. 

Two police officers came to our house that afternoon and spent a good bit of time looking around.  It was all terribly exciting for the kids who hunted the yard and garage for footprints and other clues.  John and I continued to wrap our minds around the forethought and planning it would take – two people at least and a vehicle – to empty his shop of equipment.  We believe they came in the night, Monday night to be precise, while we slept with our bedroom windows closed against the heat and an ancient window unit AC throbbing out all outside noises.

In the middle of helping our kids not be scared and figuring out what we need equipment-wise to move forward, John and I have worked through the anger and discouragement that follows crime.  We’ve talked about the buttons it pushes, how disbelief is followed by anger and then a pervasive sense of futility (or what my husband calls being glum).  We’ve wondered aloud and privately whether this event might change the way we live and, more importantly, the way we think about life itself (which is always behind the way we choose to live).  In the middle of it all, despite the very real loss of tools we cannot really afford to replace, there’s a part of me that wants to call this event ‘good.’ 

When evil arrives, in any form, two of its ugliest fruits are the lies, “you are alone” and “there is not enough.”  With these two lies, evil sets itself up to multiply, because evil flourishes in isolation and scarcity.  

But when we shared about the robbery on facebook, friends near and far expressed concern, outrage and sorrow.   We were reminded, as a friend said, “You are not alone in this!”  Also, within minutes of posting, a friend sent a private message, “We have a drill press you can have,” she wrote.  This generous offer reminded us there’s enough to go around.    

These reminders were indeed good and we count ourselves as lucky because too many people do experience crime in the midst of real and crushing isolation and scarcity.  But, beyond these reminders, there was, I believe, a goodness in the robbery itself, in it happening to us (or, maybe I should speak for myself here – to me). 

It was good, not because theft is good or because I can imagine scenario in which someone really did really need our resources more than us, but because it is true and real.  Crime is a reality, or maybe I should put it another way – sin is a reality. 

Too often I’m prone to pretend it isn’t.

Before we go nodding our heads, though, and clucking our tongues over the state of the world we live in, it might be helpful to remember the words of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes.  “There is nothing new under the sun,” he says.  Just nine verses in to a ten chapter book, and he lays out his sobering conclusion.  It’s almost as though he concludes before beginning, “It is, what it is.”   

It is what it is – robbery, racism, fear, hatred, isolation – all of these things always have been and always will be.  Sit with that for a while, if you will.  Or, if you don’t want to take the Teacher’s word for it, read elsewhere in the bible.  Take the book of Amos, for example, wherein an unlikely prophet calls Israel to task for conflating politics with religion, for allowing robbery and violence to flourish in their midst, for trampling the poor underfoot in a continual rush toward material greed and personal pleasure (7:10-17, 3:10, 5:11, 6:4-6, 2:6-8) all while continuing to perform empty religious rituals (5:21-24).  All of this, among the people of God, mind you. 

Or, read history.  Chose a time, a place, any one, and you will find sin working in obvious and not-so-obvious ways.  It is, what it is. 

Christians must accept the reality of sin.  Small wrong-doings, like a local robbery or the way you treat your kids when you’re tired or hungry or simply done at the end of a long, hot, humid, summer day, can be good reminders.  Local news, national news, international news, these all serve as reminders too, but not when viewed as extraordinary.  The times we live in are like no other and yet, they are like every other time before this.  “There is nothing new under the sun,” the Teacher says, not even evil itself is new or different than it has even been. 

It all seems rather grim, doesn’t it?   

But this is where I see something glimmer, a small nugget of good news tucked right in the middle of the darkness, which is, by the way where we ought to most often expect to find the gospel. 

The good news is this:  there is nothing new.  Not when it comes to evil.  It is and it is the same, without end.  So if we’re going to get up in arms about anything, let it be this – there is nothing new under the sun save for the gospel which is continually and again inviting us and everyone who does and doesn’t look like us and speak like us and pray or sing like us to pitch in and be part of that which has already overcome.

 

We can spend our energy bemoaning evil, which never changes, or we can turn our hearts and minds to the work of God, the way of God, in the world.  We can open our very lives to the power of God in Christ Jesus that's forever redeeming. 

Sin is not new and (good news!) neither is its cure.  And even sin itself, our own or others', can be an invitation, a reminder that we can choose where we place our focus and how we use our energy.  

*   *   *   *

Only 10 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.   

Echolocation (#SmallWonder Link-up)

ech-o-lo-ca-tion (noun)
    the location of objects by reflected sound, in particular that used 
    by animals such as dolphins and bats.  

To be a person
of faith, is to consent
to life lived blind as a bat,
to be a people of light
walking in darkness.

Faith will teach you
what you need to know
about soaring at night,
listening for the echo
of your own prayers
reverberating back to you. 

The way forward is revealed,
always, in relation to the 
place where you are.

//

I recently read an article in Presence, an international journal of Spiritual Direction, in which author Susan Phillips describes learning to listen to God and self as being similar to echolocation - the navigational technique used by bats, whales and dolphins ("Navigating the Depths: Spiritual Direction in a Shallow Culture").  I found this to be a fascinating concept to explore.  This short poem is the first fruits of my exploration.  

My experience of God's leading is most often one of darkness - being led in ways I cannot see and learning to be led without sight.  I wrote two poems about this last year.  The first, Seeing in the Dark, came out of our experience of finding and losing (and then finding again) the house of our dreams and was inspired by the images of Billy training Little Ann and Old Dan to hunt in Where the Red Fern Grows.  A second poem, Bloodhound, was born last summer after learning about Bloodhounds at the kids' summer library program.  Did you know that the folds of skin on a Bloodhound's face serve to cover its eyes so it won't be visually distracted while following a scent?  

In our anxious culture and in my own anxious heart there's a heightened focus on the need for certainty in order to move forward.  For us, the sense of sight is a dominate image for certainty, as in "I saw it with my own two eyes."  Yet scripture describes the life of faith quite differently, as confidence and hope based in things that exist beyond out own limited sight:

So we do not lose heart . . . because we look not at what can be seen, but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.  So we are always confident . . . for we walk by faith, not by sight.  (2 Cor 4:16, 18; 5:7)

May you be blessed, friends, with occasional bouts of blindness so that walking by faith, you will learn to be led with confidence in the dark.  

//

I have a few brief announcements to share today.  I want to first thank each of you for your contributions to this community and to invite you to continue spreading the word about #SmallWonder and commenting on and sharing the work of other writers.  My hope is that we will be a group that is deep in its connection and support.  

Second, I want to let you know that Jody Ohlsen Collins has decided to step back in helping to coordinate #SmallWonder as she focuses on some new ventures of her own - including an exciting writer's retreat offering coming this fall on the West Coast.  

Thirdly, I noticed last week that Makes You Mom, a new website full of thoughtful reflections about mothering is hosting a weekly link-up this summer around habits of self-care.  Follow the link to see a list of topics - the first link-up begins this Friday.  I'm excited to join the conversation because of my own poor track-record and conflicted feelings about self care.  Won't you join me?

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are. 

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

When the %$*& Hits the Fan (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

Prince Humperdinck, "First things first, to the death."
Westley, "No, to the pain."
- The Princess Bride

O, I believe,
fate smiled and destiny
laughed as she came to my cradle,
know this child will be able,
laughed as my body she lifted,
know this child will be gifted,
with love, with patience and with faith,
she'll make her way. 
- "Wonder" by Natalie Merchant

Last Friday I sent up a call of distress. 

Early in the morning in the cold, dark living room I sent a message to a few friends on Facebook,

“Here’s the thing – I’ve become discouraged.  I have dreams and visions of what it means to live where we do – ideas about Spiritual Direction, Retreats and a life close to home filled with writing, speaking and tending souls.  But, and here I know it sounds a little ridiculous given God’s miraculous provision of this place, for some reason lately, I’m losing hope.  We’ve hit some very significant financial road blocks, we’re between church communities and I am weary of piecing things together.  So, will you pray for me, for us?”

//

Last Wednesday my husband called early in the morning to tell me the timing belt broke in his car on his way to work.  Thankfully it didn’t happen on the highway, thankfully it was within walking distance of his office.  But, really – this was just three days after we started urgently petitioning God for financial provision.  See what I mean – this was AFTER we started praying.

With that one phone call and the two or three phone calls after it, it was like someone, somewhere pulled a plug and all of our savings went “whoosh,” down the drain.  The little bit of money we had to help us get through to the end of summer just up and disappeared. 

//

The most natural thing you can do, the worst thing you can do, when stress sets in and life becomes laced with fear, is to seize up.  The most unnatural thing you can do is to relax, to rest, to hold your own peace of mind and spirit.  This is how infants and young children can survive terrible accidents without being injured – they don’t know enough to be afraid, they stay calm, relaxed and flexible.

//

When the %^&% hits the fan, my impulse is to “man up.”

I got out the computer and started a resume.

I organized a yard sale.

I took the little seeds of my own dreams out of my pocket and buried them somewhere in a deep, dark, place.  They no longer glowed with hope and promise – they were as good as dead to me.

//

Thursday night, I dreamed I was pregnant again – a fifth child, still tiny showed up in an ultrasound.  How did we let this happen? I asked.  That baby filled my dream-self with dread – seven more years at home I thought.  Seven more years until I can do what I want. 

In the dream, the baby was also a tiny dragon.  But, you know, that’s how dreams often are.

//

Friday morning I sat on the love seat by the cold, empty stove with tears streaming down and sent up a call of distress. 

“I’ve become discourage . . . I’m losing hope.”

The kids woke up and I built a fire, because wood is free, and we moved into the day while I still swallowed tears down. 

Around eight, my kids started humming and buzzing with excitement.  “Why’s he here?” they exclaimed.  I looked out the kitchen window while my kids ran out the door and saw my friend, one of the few added to that Facebook call of distress, climbing out of his car.

He hugged and toted my kids around, watched them climb the small Japanese Maple tree and we stood in the yard talking about chickens waiting for the bus to come.  After the older two climbed onto the bus, I pulled up Cat in the Hat on Netflix for the twins and we sat in the kitchen and talked over coffee. 

“I’m losing heart,” I said.

“I know,” he replied.

This friend of mine has the look and build of someone straight out of Sons of Anarchy – a giant of a man complete with pony tail, beard and a Harley Davidson.  If he was a stranger, I would be afraid at best to see him approaching on darkened street or even in broad daylight. 

This friend has a Masters in Pain, a hard earned degree in life and loss and resilient hope.

“I could see this coming,” he said and I believed it to be true, because this friend and I resonate on a deep level.  More than anyone else in this world he has helped me understand myself, has given me new words and insight into my own brokenness which often provides just enough of a tweak to set me on the road to healing. 

Here are just a few of the things he said to me that morning that helped clear the fog of fear, things I remembered well enough to write down in my journal a few days later,

“Provision wouldn’t solve the problem.”

“It’s not hard, you can do hard, you’re a hard worker – it’s painful.”

and, “Pain is part of your gift.  You have pain in proportion to your gift and your gift is great, so you experience great pain.”

Talking together I saw that I’m again rounding a blind corner in my journey – I’m being asked, again, to trust. 

To trust pain can be a gift.

To trust God cares.

To live loosely, to lean in to the bend in the road, to believe seeds buried in darkness and fear can sprout and live again and the life that follows death is always greater than the loss.

//

Not much has changed.  Everything has changed.

We had a great yard sale.  There’s the dim prospect of overtime work for my husband.  I put my resume on hold.  We told the kids we would have to pray about a vacation for the summer. 

In the midst of the pain, faith is sprouting again, the tiniest speck of green.

Later that day one red tulip opened in the garden and the rest of those friends on Facebook sent their own thoughtful, compassionate replies, most of which consisted of some gentle version of, “Me too.”

I'm not writing this to garner sympathy.  I'm writing because maybe you also have been gifted with pain.  Maybe you too are rounding another blind corner in your journey.  I won't tell you it's going to be ok, but for now, I will pull back the curtain long enough to give you a glimpse of my own pain.  I will give you my pain, my life as I know it, in hopes that it will help you in some small whisper of a way.  

  

*   *   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are. 

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.    

A Prayer for Wonder

We stayed out later than normal and as I carried forty pounds of three year old through the cold, dark night toward the waiting van, he happened to look up. 

“The moon is so little!” he cried. 

I tipped my chin toward heaven and saw stars winking their diamond light, but no moon in sight.

“Does the moon get that little every night?” he marveled.

“No, Levi,” I said, “those are stars.”

He’s seen the moon large, flat and silver hanging low and shining through his bedroom window at night, but you have to be outside to see the stars.  I tried to imagine what it must seem like to him, as though a giant hammer shattered the moon and sent it flying across a canvas of black, a million shimmering slivers of light. 

//

“Go outside and look at the stars,” God told Abraham.  “Try to count them if you can.”

“Where is the king?” the wise men asked, “We have seen his star and have come to worship him.”

“You will shine like stars,” Paul tells the people of Phillipi. 

//

How often do I fail to look up, to set my eyes toward the wonder of all that shines in heaven and on earth?

//

Last winter we stood in a freezing field of evergreens as darkness descended, determined to cut our own tree despite the inconvenience.  Mittened and booted, the kids and I huddled around the van while my husband worked the hand saw back and forth against the still living tree. 

Standing in the field, out far beyond his bedtime, my one son was overwhelmed by the dark.  Tucking his mittened hand into my own he turned his chubby face up and it shone, round and full like the moon.   “Santa up there,” he said in a voice filled with a mixture of utter certainty and awe. 

I was surprised, we don’t really do much with Santa at our house and although he missed the mark theologically, in that wide darkness my little boy knew something holy and wonderful was afoot.  His very being embodied wonder as he gazed upward.  In that moment he was not so different from the wise men who couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of the star, but knew wonder, knew light, when they saw it.    

//

Tied to the roof of the van, the tree followed us home to a dark little apartment where we strung it with lights, bringing a faint echo of the glimmering starlight inside with us for a season.  Those lights hung between needles of green lit the room gently in the evenings - quieting us, calling our hearts, our minds, to wonder, as though God might whisper in the darkness, “Look at the lights, try to count them if you can.”

//

Where are you looking these days?  

The world we live in holds enough darkness to overwhelm us all, darkness both deep and wide.  The good news of John’s gospel, though, begins with a simple affirmation - “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” 

There is a Light that shines among us and we are called not to deny the darkness, but to look for the Light in the very midst of it.

God of heaven and earth, teach us to look up, 
to look out beyond our small selves, our small ideas.   

Cultivate in us the eyes of a child – 
eyes of wonder, awe and belief.  

Let us stand unafraid in the dark, our faces lifted in wonder, 
seeking the light that’s both already and yet to come.   

Then we, with faces round and full like the moon, 
will shine like stars, like light scattered far and wide against the night.