Still-Standing Stars

(nuttakit, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1556)

I loved a comment my friend, Laura, made at our book study last Tuesday. We're both writers, and we discussed the motives for publishing. "I'm just not a competitive person," I said. "So many writers are struggling to get on the Best Seller List, but even those that do, their book is a flash in the pan. Most end up in remainders the next year, forgotten. And so the top authors have to produce a book just about every year to maintain their status and paychecks.

"What if," I suggested, "instead of writing horizontally--for strangers currently living across the globe--we write for a vertical audience--for our children, and their children, and their children, going deep through time. Look how many children Abraham has! Families are eternal, and so in just a matter of generations we'll be on our loved ones' Best Seller List. Wouldn't that be true success?

Laura then said, "It's like the difference between shooting stars that streaks across the sky and are burned up in an instant, and the stars that are always in the sky shining for us. One is brilliant and eye-catching, but the other is steady, constant."

Her comment is especially significant to me because my name is Connie, which is derived from the Latin word Constant (faithful, devoted, enduring). One of my favorite lines from a hymn, "Reverently and Meekly Now," says, ". . . . and be constant unto me that thy Savior I may be."

As I've considered her comment, I've thought of the countless mariners and travelers who've depended on the constant stars to guide them.


So we can enjoy the flash in the pan (or across the sky) events, books, movies, technologies . . . but I wonder if it isn't the "common" people and moments that are the light of our lives. And if, like light pollution that prevents us from seeing the full glory of the steady stars, we fail to see each other, our own loved ones,  for all the celebrity glare and entertainment streaking around us.

Exodus 32:13 

Remember Abraham, (unto whom I saidst), I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.

 

Best Seller List or  no, we are all stars in Heavenly Father's book. We were made to shine.