Beresheit

In the beginning...

This is a true story. I was 7 years old. I had no religion. I was coming home from having been out to dinner with my parents, and somewhere between the detached garage and the patio door, I looked up into the night sky, thinking to see the Milky Way. Instead, what I saw was the Cosmos. I saw it all. The size and scope of it. I was stunned, terrified, speechless. I told no one what I had seen and I shivered in fear in my bed that night, thinking I would be crushed by the sheer size of it. How small I was! How tiny the earth was! How insignificant our planet seemed in the vastness of it all. I'm not sure how I slept at all.

The next day I stayed indoors, afraid of the sky, not wanting to be reminded of what waited behind that broad blue curtain. My grandmother finally shooed me outside. I was in the way of her cleaning. A child belonged outside, playing in the sunshine on such a pretty day!

I tiptoed out the door and sat in a spineless heap on the concrete patio, at the edge of the lawn. I settled in beside my grandmother's umbrella clothesline, where I could hang on to the metal support post if I seemed in danger from the Universe. I thought about how tiny we humans were, not even on the scale of ants. Invisible. Smaller even than atoms! Completely insignificant. My grey tomcat kitten came to me and rubbed against me. I picked up a rock, decomposed granite gravel from the driveway, and turned it in my hand, feeling the roughness. I dared not move.

I felt comforted. I felt cradled. I sensed, rather than heard, a voice telling me not to be afraid. The stars, the universe, the earth, my cat, the rocks, the lawn, my grandmother's clothesline, me, all of it, were "pieces of God." All equally important. None insignificant. It was all part of the fabric of God. God was in it all, God's life and essence flowed through it all, so I should never feel scared.

The weight of the entire universe taken off my 7 year old shoulders, I felt incredibly happy. So relieved! The sky would never scare me again. I was not sure what God was, but I knew God was something good. Alive. Warm. Moving. Flowing. Inside everything. Vast beyond comprehension.

My epiphany that sunny summer day in 1945 has informed my life's desire: to discover who/what this God is who permeates all things, including me, yet counts the rocks and a small gray tomcat as equal to the stars, and comforts me when I am a frightened child.  I have searched religions and my own heart, have read and studied, practiced and meditated, and will continue to do so.  This blog is my attempt to put what I have learned and am learning into words. It is a step out into the Cosmic unknown.

I am feeling very blessed.

Yom Kippur 5774

Image: Orion