1961

2008-11-11T17:29:00.000-08:00

The distant moon hung steady in the sky, an unmoving constant behind barely moving mountains, racing silhouettes of trees, a flashing stripe on the road.

"Dad, how does the moon keep up with us?"

"Well, it's really, really fast, and it's following us."

My forehead was unused to wrinkling into a frown, but a slight one formed. Grownups were always giving silly answers to important questions, as if I couldn't understand the truth.

I could... I could tell a silly answer when I heard it.

Soon I got a glimpse of the answer. It appeared in the shape of a yellow house behind a white picket fence. Walking past, the pickets slid by me quickly, the flower bed less so, the trees at the side of the house, more slowly.

The moon must be very, very far away for it to move hardly at all when my father drove down that Glenn County road. It must be so far away it made mountains seem close. The moon must be almost as big as the world.

I'd seen a globe of the world. My dad had pointed out where we lived on it, and there was a map in his bedroom with little pins stuck in it that was like a small part of the globe. The moon must be almost as big as the world.

Well, maybe not quite that big. After all, this was the world, and it was only the moon, a blotchy disc in the sky.

The next chance I got I looked at the moon harder. I imagined how big the world was compared to the moon. If the world was up there in the sky, next to the moon, I bet it would be three or four times bigger.

I held my thumb and finger up pinching the moon in the sky. I spread my fingers until they were about an inch and a half apart.

"I bet the world would be about that big," I thought.

The moon has hung steady in my sky ever since.

I'm not sure what it is about the moon, but it's been my companion, sliding alongside my life as I skip through this single dimension of entropic mortality. It never changes. Not really. Every full moon has the same splotches in the same places.

I have changed.

That year, 1961, when I first considered the moon, was a special year.

I have had several important years. 1976, the year I discovered hiking and hitchhiking, adventures in the Sierras and along the West Coast. 1992, the year my son died. 2008, the year that ended with divorce.

But that year, 1961, that was particular.

It was the year my heart grew. It was the year I realized God was not like the Tooth Fairy. It was the year I changed from a little kid, unaware of a larger world. Events rolled over me like the weather. That year, I began to notice things.

My father. He was powerful, strong, quick, knew so much. He smelled of diesel, grease, grain, and sweat. He was a mysterious giant, a god. They told me I looked like him.

So I leaned in doorways with my arms folded the way he did, tried swaggering when I walked. I tried to be powerful, strong, and quick.

1961. It was the year I first opened my heart to God.

It didn't make me fit in any better with my father... but my eyes began to see... my heart began to see...

Notes

2008-11-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

Ideas for book sections, threads, chapters...

Strange childhood...

demolishing buildings, riding atop a roof while the building crumbles beneath us.

Faith... this is the thread that holds the story together. It's not about my walk with God so much as the beautiful way the universe fits together... the mysteries... the things that are really beautiful...

Things I noticed. Beginning in 1961.

I guess I should make a quick list:

Living in Artois, and then Willows, California (interesting meaning behind the name of the first community)

Awakening Faith... church bell, kindergarten fence, stain glassed window, 351 Plumas St., communion

Awakening sense of adventure & curiosity, with a sense that anything could happen. Riding bikes, being Cowboys & Indians, Pirates, climbing trees, dares, skinned knees, bad fall on the face... twice... baby teeth, imagined the distance and size of the moon (not too far off),

Sense of responsibility for my siblings

Sense of beauty. The moon, rice fields, sky

Art... gingerbread houses, books of art... Michelangelo, Dali, my mother's paintings

Horsing around

Science

What I've seen and learned and thought about and how it connects to God

From why the sky is blue to how a trinity of quantum threads sings the universe into existence

Two dimensions of time? If it were true, what does this imply about eternity... entropy...the view of the universe from a realm of more dimensions.... what this thing, creation, does at it floats in a grreater realm of twelve dimensions

Stars... types... what they are made of...what they are making, what they will make when they die... the nearest ones...

Strange Rivalry... the conflict so many battle over what science says and what they believe is needed from the universe for their faith to be correct. Young earth, evolution, quantum mechanics... interpretations of Genesis... What many miss in reading the Garden story.

Worship

hiking & hitchhiking, walking, prayer, singing dancing, social restrictions, inhibitions, solitary, small group, corporate...

Two intersections with Eternity.

March 15, 1992 (Look up exact date of #2)

Rough Times

little money, parents divorce, getting sick

Willy, Jeremiah & Isaac, Affairs, fire, divorce

Strange side journeys...

Jesus Freak, Yoga Center, Sons of Ramakrishna, nature

Silverado

Brenda. Soni.

Jobs

heavy equipment, cook, editor, milkman, insulation, laborer, graphic art, paper deliver, telemarketing, leather work, custodian, YMCA, baker, smoothies, dish washer, teacher... COLLEGE

My kids

Who they are... why they are wonderful... what we do... our future

Creativity

Painting, writing, moving really, really heavy things, sculpture

Relationship

How God walks with us... Trying to figure out what that means... free will... Shepherd... Good from bad... how He speaks...

The internal compass...

Perspective

Rule #1: I am probably wrong on almost everything... this is my attempt to understand based on limited abilities.

Rule #2: This is not about sweeping statements, declared truths. This is entirely about questions, not answers. Answers are often wrong. Questions never are.

Rule #3: This is about Him

Rule #4: Have fun