Monday, July 11, 2005
It All Seems So Beyond Us
Adam and Eve kicked out—evicted from their paradise. No more walks in the cool of the evening with God. It was all over and a barren land waited. There would be grass to mow. Sandstorms. Sand fleas. Sand in the tent. Sand in Cain’s diaper. And you know how Cain gets. Eve knew the boy was going to be a handful. She was up all night as he cried and would not get comfortable. It marked his life. The wayward son in a wasteland being held by parents who could not get over what they just lost.
Paradise was over. But maybe what bothered them more than anything was the way it made them feel so small, so insignificant. When you are prince and princess in your own paradise, you are sheltered. Your world is small. Your vision of self is large. And outside Eden their eyes saw a great expanse, the way Lewis and Clark did at the Continental Divide. Adam and Eve were shocked to discover a world on the outside.
Last night I was telling Sloan, my fifteen-year-old daughter, about something I read in Annie Dillard’s, For the Time Being. Dillard points out the fact that there may be up to nine galaxies in space per person with billions of suns in each one.
Sloan commented, “That’s scary. I just know we are not the only planet with people. It makes you feel so small.”
The size of space makes us feel small and insignificant. Sometimes this town can make you feel small and insignificant. This road, this house, this room can make you feel it too.
I’ve been writing some books for the YMCA and Thomas Nelson, and in my research I discovered that the number one thing we all feel is insignificant, like our life doesn’t matter. If there are billions of suns, then what am I? How can my small plot of land matter in the scope of that expanse?
Some people can look at all the stars, imagine all of the planets, and rejoice. They find much joy in creation. But I’m not that fired up about astronomy. I like to see a shooting star. I saw three in one night a few months ago. I took it as some sign that God was with me. We can all be sentimental like that. But the bringing of the night in full circle. The lone bush that burns. The wheel inside the wheel that Ezekiel speaks of. All of this expanse. Then me.
Did you know that 21 grams of weight leaves everyone at the moment of death? It could be our soul. Who knows?
This is what I think about. Where do we go? Who is the first person or what will be the first place we will see? It can be scary, as Sloan said. Because to think big like this makes us feel small. It should. Jesus said the stars will fall from the sky. The earth will be shaken. I can’t imagine that. It seems like a sci-fi book.
I love The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The earth is being demolished because a galactic highway is coming through our space, and we have to go. That’s a deft twist. But one day it will come true. The earth will burn, so will the heavens. Then Paradise returns. I can’t wait to see Adam and Eve’s face. Maybe they will shout, “That’s it! That’s home! That’s where we walked with God!”
So shall we.
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Something New. Read one of Robert's novels in progress. It's a sweet and tender love story that appeals to the romantic in all of us. Click the link: http://ablogofregrets.blogspot.com/
© 2007 by Robert Stofel