Sunny Side Up Sept. 14, 2005 �2005, Kathleen Gibson Oh, what marvelous lights Evening. Yorkton and area residents filled the grandstand, spilled onto the lawn in front of it. We sat the way we did at the open-air church service that began the day. Shoulder to shoulder. A cozy tangle of people, lawn chairs, and high spirits. Saskatchewan had already been birthday-ing for some time. (Could you let a hundred years pass without substantial celebration?) So, after all the special events those last many months, after the final day's celebrations, it seemed fitting that the province-wide party go out with a bang. Fireworks - organized to take place concurrently across the province. The show transported us from the prairies into the heavens. For thirty minutes, sulphur scent filled our nostrils. Ashes rained, alighting cool and soft as snowflakes on our heads. Children lay on their backs, pointing skyward and cheering. Looking up, like their parents, at a stunningly unfamiliar sky. I speak for all but the most jaded, I think. We sat delighted. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed. I reached for my husband's hand, leaned low into my Canadian flag lawn chair, and enjoyed. Glowing tadpoles, their tails wagging furiously, swam rapidly skyward. High, higher, highest they went, then exploded into innumerable colored points of light. Yellow. Green. Red. Blue. Purple. White. They zigged. They zagged. They spiraled and spun like demented tops, throwing circles of sparks. They burst into heart shapes and wordlessly portrayed the centenary theme -100 Years of Heart. Grain fields waved for glorious seconds. Prairie lilies, colorful as a summer meadow, bloomed and died. Snowballs streaked for the Big Dipper, then melted into banks of tiny cumulus clouds and drifted south. Sea anemones - circular clusters of crayola brilliance - blazed into comets that arched, then turned and streaked downward in dizzying showers. Extinguished, their smoky radiance dissipated like ghostly dandelion puffs, displaced jelly fish, even umbrella skeletons, all quickly disassembled by the night breeze. After the last smoke puff had blown from the field, after the last cheer had sounded and the crowd meandered - still shoulder to shoulder - to their vehicles, I looked up. Only the stars remained. God's nightlights; almost invisible after the spectacular pyrotechnics. If the scientists are right, starlight travels for centuries to reach us. The stars themselves burned out long ago, they say; our 'nightlights in the sky' are mere visual echoes. Unlike the blazing flings of temporary luminescence we'd just observed, a star's light remains bright long after it's gone. That implies, I think, that most of the notable people society touts as 'stars' are inaptly titled. How many of today's 'big names' will be even a distant memory at our province's two or three hundredth birthdays, let alone eons from now? Just those whose lights still shine; who invested their lives in the only three things that are eternal - God, his Word, and people. We may not always remember their names, but the impact of their investments, like sacred flames, will soar, reflecting through countless generations. Are you firecracker or star? Respond Home |
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