It’s a Smile of Course

You could take my word for it.  I am, after all, 66 years old and have seen a thing or two.  I have climbed my way through the educational system, earning a diploma and a degree or two or three.  I have put in my years of employment of one kind or another - selling ice cream and communities, camps and congregations, eggs and tomatoes and a point of view.  Or two.  I have some credentials and credibility and some trips around the sun.  Whether the sum of any of that is wisdom is anyone’s guess, but nonetheless you could take my word for it.

Or you could consult the scientists who routinely ask questions and seek credible answers.  They have scanned the skies and attended conferences and published articles and calibrated distances and distilled the gases and charted the relevant rotations.  

You could retrieve the almanac, assuming you can remember where you shelved it, check the date and trust the ancient wisdom.  

You could consult the poets because poets, with their poetic eye and ear, routinely paint the truth and beckon us to stand beside them, shoulder to shoulder, and witness awes larger than life.  

We could flip through the scriptures, righteously and “rightly dividing the word of truth,” but chances are the verse we would land on is from the muttering Micah who would quietly shake his head and remind us, “God has shown you, O mortal, what is good.”

“Goodness,” we might exclaim by way of response, “is there anything good?”  

There is plenty to make us wonder. In my town a mother just killed her newborn.  At the Capitol they are passing laws that amount to suffocation.  At the bank they are wringing their hands - I am too when I look at my eroding reserves.  In Eastern Europe, Goliath is bombing David who, so far, is successfully slingshotting a few well-aimed stones in return.  And at schools, teachers must now set aside their teaching to assess genitalia and monitor bathroom access.  

We could ask the churches, but what ones haven’t fallen asleep are largely fighting amongst themselves and aren’t likely to hear the question.  Or are too busy gearing up for the Easter Egg Hunt to answer.

You could ask Siri or Alexa and they would surely have some well researched Wikipedia article to succinctly summarize the details.

Or, you could simply look up and draw your own conclusions - seeing for yourself that it is a smile - the moon whimsically offering a blessing for your night, your sleep, your punctuating period at the end of this day.  

A smile.  

It’s up there.  You could ask someone or never even notice.  Or in the process of walking the dog or turning off the light or peeking out the window or simply taking one last deep breath of this day, look up, zoom in, and claim it for yourself.  A smile.  The corners of Creation are curling upward in affirmation.

And returning a smile of your own - for whomever and whatever might need one - offering the world a blessed and happy “good night.”