The moon was incredibly full and bright in a clear sky tonight. When I was walking home from work, I saw a tourist taking pictures of the Capitol. “You’ll want to photograph the moon,” I said, after having just taken a few pictures myself. “Yes, I did,” he replied with a big grin.
As bright as was the moon, the street lights would not have needed to be on so fully as when the moon is just a sliver of a crescent. As I gazed in awe at the luminous beauty of the moon, I thought also about the wondrousness of electric street lights. How is it that we so often take for granted electricity, but marvel at the moon? Is not light in all its forms a source of wonder when we stop to remember? Why resent the street lights for dimming the beauty of the moon when we can instead see their own beauty?
