Looking at the moon. "Der Mond ist aufgegangen."

It was light out quite late.  Winter seems to want to let up at some point.  The moon is almost full.  I was looking at it through my south window.

We always talk about God  being like the sun.

But  he is also like the moon.  Always there, day and night, visible or invisible.  All generations have sat in pensive nights and marveled at it.

And here I am in a new house and it's the same old moon.  The moon I've looked at from all the places I've lived in.  The same moon that other people talk, write and sing about.  We all have the same moon in all the world, through all generations.

He is there above us.  He shines his light.  He is the perfect companion on a dark night.

When I think at night about the moon I also think about the unceasing worship around the world.  As the earth turns others awake and go to sleep and say their evening and morning prayers, he steadfastly keeps guarding us, circling around us.  He makes me feel connected to everyone else.

In German we have a very famous song about the moon in our hymnbook.  "Der Mond ist aufgegangen." by Matthias Claudius.  Text in German and English here.  It is a lovely poem.  Read it and enjoy it.

The Passover and Easter are always celebrated according to a lunar schedule.  Thus people could travel to Jerusalem by moonlight.  Thus we are just about at Holy Week, again.

There are many renderings on YouTube.  I thought this one was nice.




This one is cool, too.  In Germany we used to memorize and we could sing our hymns anywhere and many verses.  See the people sing at this festival.