I’ve been trying to determine if I am an optimist or a pessimist, but it’s a challenge.  Regarding some things I am really a glass-is-half-full type of person.  Other things are more like the glass is half empty but the part that surprisingly has anything in it has spoiled and if I drink it I’ll probably die.  I go in cycles (not that kind – well maybe that kind).

To the point, let me tell you that recently I updated my home page on my computer and included a pictorial of the current phase of the moon.  Today’s moon phase is Waning Crescent 2% of Full.

Amazing!  Whoever came up with labeling the phases of the moon must have been quite the optimist.  I most likely would have said Waning Crescent 98% Darkened.  Perhaps if I had been around during the early years of mankind I would have assessed it as The Moon is Disappearing and We’re All Going to Die in the Darkness of Night.  At that point I would have asked my husband Bob, who would have been an engineer like he is today even though nobody would have come up with that name yet, to please quickly invent something that would give light and warmth before we were attacked in our sleep by whatever crept around in the darkness or worse yet by that weird guy with eight saber-tooth cats who lived down the path.

At any rate, I would have been pleasantly surprised when the moon started to grow in size again, which would have given Bob a bit more time to develop that light source he was working on.

So in a day when we are approaching a fiscal cliff and the moon is waning, I choose to look for that moon to wax again.  It might light our way in case we don’t get a barricade up in time to keep us all from plunging to our death.  Oops, I mean it might light our way to see the loveliness of the terrain as we enjoy the scenic view of the side of the cliff.  Is that better?  I’ll look at it as a baby step toward optimism.

Psalm 42:11 – Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.