The other day, we went to the beach to watch the sunrise.

The transition from darkness to light, from mystery to radiance never fails to mesmerize me.

This day, though, I couldn’t take my eyes off the Moon.

As we lay on the sand staring at the sky, I watched it, illuminated but shrouded in a thin cloud veil, giving the Moon the appearance of being haloed.

It glowed beyond its dimensions, its light diffused but magnified, an enhanced image broadcast over 250,000 miles, filtered only a mile or two away through a saturated vapor screen.

And for an hour, it blazed in the black sky.

Then, as it always does, it faded.

The sun that lights it emerged, revealing itself as director, choreographer, and producer of this play orchestrated behind rotating curtains, and the haloed moon vanished into the day, relinquishing the spotlight it owned for a few brief hours.

And in all that, it kind of reminded me of us.

We shine, not because we are so bright, but because the light that shines through us is irresistible. We did not create the breath that inspires us nor sculpt the faces that captivate the people who love us. We did not engineer the hearts and minds that beat defiant rhythms against our own inescapable mortality. We can cultivate them through vision. We can season them through experience. But they do not belong to us.

We glow, we stand out, we expand, not solely by virtue of our uniqueness, but also because we are products of our environment. We fit perfectly amidst the pinpoint stars of our distant past. We are at home in the skies that frame us. We are all the more brilliant when appearing where least expected, or persisting against a clock that should have vanquished us by now.

But nearly as quickly as we appeared, we will be gone.

We cannot predict the length of the show.

We can only choose to shine.

So tonight, may you shine, may you glow, may you stand out, without apology or regret.

And tomorrow, may someone marvel at the light.