Streams of Mercy

One cold, clear night last week, I was out in the yard at the manse “considering the heavens.” A beautiful starlit night it was, with the brightest and closest full moon I’d seen in years. The words of Psalm 8 came to mind. This beautiful Psalm celebrates God’s glory and the God-given dignity and worth of human beings.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon

and the stars that you have established; what are human beings

that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands.” (Psalm 8:3-6 )

Perhaps the mention of the words “out of the mouths of babes and infants” earlier in the Psalm reminded me of a song I enjoyed with my children. The song, “Somewhere Out There” comes from the children’s movie “American Tail,” the story of two little mice, separated and longing to find the way back to each other. One night each little mouse is sitting outside in the moonlight, thinking of the other, and singing this song:

Somewhere out there

Beneath the pale moonlight

Someone's thinking of me

And loving me tonight

Somewhere out there

Someone's saying a prayer

That we'll find one another

In that big somewhere out there…

It helps to think we're sleeping

Underneath the same big sky

Somewhere out there

If love can see us through

Then we'll be together

Somewhere out there…

In a time when so much divides us, I’m comforted by the thought that all of us are sleeping under the same big sky, and that someone out there is saying a prayer that we’ll find one another. I find myself saying over and over again, “I’m praying we will be able to find our way back to each other.” I’m praying this for my family, for our church family and for our greater human family – that love will see us through, and that we’ll find our way back to each other.

Elizabeth