Dancing with the Stars

My wife and I were in Kauai, Hawaii, escaping the cold and taking a needed break. One afternoon, I passed one of those shops that sell inexpensive jewelry and trinkets, and in the window was a star-shaped, stained-glass ornament suspended by a string. It was twirling. When the breeze blew, the star twisted and spun, throwing light and a multitude of colors on the glass and the surrounding walls.

This little star filled the space with dancing energy. Is this what it looks like when God dances? Light shimmering in space.

It struck me that I had seen the swirling kaleidoscope of colors before, but I wasn’t sure where. I pondered the colors in the store’s window for a couple of days, then went online to the Nasa website and pulled up images from the Hubble Space Telescope. There it was: the colors I saw in the store window resembled those found in the Antennae Galaxies —red rose and rust-colored clouds, pink swirls, dots of white, and periwinkle blue splashes. With each click on the computer, I realized all the spirals and ellipticals of light, the gas clouds, and the tendrils of cosmic dirt seemed to be dancing. I searched for other galaxies. The Pillars of Creation appeared stately and foxtrotting. Star clusters were break dancing. Spiral galaxies were whirling dervishes. The Orion Nebula was definitely doing the Twist. And perhaps the most beautiful of all was the Crab Nebula, a galaxy that exploded in 1054 AD but continues to dance in the darkness. Galaxy upon galaxy upon galaxy moving molecules in space and throwing off energy, light, and what appears to be joy. Perhaps the cosmos is God dancing.

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