The moon, as familiar as a favorite statue of the Sacred Heart, hands stretched out in the parish parking lot, welcoming the faithful to prayer. There is nothing superstitious about the protection afforded the parishioners as they come to worship, for they find the statue’s message of Christ’s love and personal care, both a source of hope and comfort.

Years ago, my farmer uncle taught me the same kind of lesson about the moon. He lived a couple hundred miles from our home on a lake in northern Wisconsin, and thought nothing of setting out alone for his pilgrimage to beauty, solitude, a garden that awaited his magical touch, pinochle cards, with hours of bidding, laughter and good will, sufficient to feed his soul with friendship and relaxation.

All was well and good, but his penchant for beginning his journey late inevitably set me to worrying, so much so that I never went to bed until I heard his car coming up the road to the little red house next door. On this particular night, the clock on the dining room table registered 2:00 o’clock, when the light went on in the kitchen across the way, and off I went to bed, with mixed feelings of relief and exasperation. It never occurred to him that I might be staying up late, more than a bit concerned about a deer darting from the bushes, or his falling asleep at the wheel.

The following morning, when I climbed the mini-hill between our properties, he invited me in for a cup of coffee, eyes twinkling with hospitality and good cheer. With the amenities out of the way, and my hand around the cup, I asked him, “Uncle Bill, don’t you ever feel afraid, driving over the roads in the darkness, no street lights, rarely another car? “

He looked at me and laughed away my question as being without consequence. “Why, of course not! I had that beautiful full moon for company all the way!” Typical Uncle Bill. To him, his beautiful moon was a friendly neighbor, only 239,000 miles in the distance. He was a man at one with nature, not a stranger.

One morning, around four o’clock, I looked across the yard, and there he was, planting raspberry bushes. “Dear uncle, I prayed, you may not live to see the fruit of your work.” And he didn’t. But that wouldn’t have mattered to him. He was laboring at what he loved, in the silence of the morning, and the peace of nature’s rhythm. He was teaching me the lessons he had learned, as season followed season on the farm. Sow. Water. Weed. Wait for the harvest. And give thanks. Rest. And break out the pinochle cards, with a three-penny limit on bets, if children were playing.

When I heard over the news of the bombing of the moon, I thought of Uncle Bill, and how that sacrilege would have pierced his poet’s soul, as it has for millions of us, walking around in brown studies of disbelief. Who do we think we are, figuratively thumbing our noses at the Creator’s handiwork? Are we so wise that we can know the consequences of our actions, hidden from the greatest of scientists around the world? I can imagine Uncle Bill’s lifting a child into the air while repeating Christina Rossetti poem:

I see the moon
The moon sees me
God bless the moon,
And God bless me.

Amen.

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