2000-04-04 - 14:34:48

April 4, 2000, another day, another thought.

A STRANGER IN A STRANGER LAND

As I grew old enough to form concepts and measure my surroundings, I asked the gods of my world (parents) many, many questions, things I needed to know to gain an understanding of the things puzzling me. Most of the time their answers were in language I could understand, which satisfied my curiosity for a short time, soon though I reached the questions that had answers beyond my grasp.

One night, while walking with Mom and looking up at the stars I asked her how far away the Moon was. Her answer, "More miles than there are in the world, son." I asked her, "How far away is the Sun ?" Her answer, "Farther than you can imagine." Boggled, I asked yet another question, "Mom, how far away are the stars ?" She replied, "Even farther away than the Sun, many parsecs away." I wondered and asked what a parsec was. I continued my queries. Mom said, " Maybe your father can explain some of these things to you, when we get home ask him."

Waiting until I could politely gain my father's ear, I shot a barrage of questions at him, the echoes of his answers still reverberate in my head.

The main conundrum for me was, there is no end to space ! In my little head there was no way for me to understand space without end. Also there was no way for me to comprehend space with an end. Either way it was put, my mind was truly adrift. It struggled and strove to comprehend but was beyond my conception.

When I would get sick and run a fever approaching delirium, space seemed to expand around me, but rapidly sped away from me. The edge of space would not stay still long enough for me to catch up with it. Horrific nightmares haunted my psyche, my mind was desperately trying to accept the reality which is out there and would not accept the concept of endless space. Yet today when I get sick enough I have the feeling of being an atom, growing smaller and smaller as space careens on its way.

Further along I encountered another imponderable, the unbelievable idea that time is endless, stretching into infinity - fore and aft. By Golly, someone just had to wind it up and start it running. Who ? When ? Why ? How ? Why is this thing called time measured by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, milleniums on into the distant future without end ? Why is that ? Endless apace and time still churn in my nightmares to this day.

Dealing with the questions which plague all of us at one time or another, ones which seem to be hardest to anser was and is difficult. Who am I, What am I, Where am I, Why am I ? ? ? ? ? ? My feeble mind continues to stay in a state of befuddlement. What is the GRAND PLAN ? ? ? ? ?

I grew older, learned more, yet these two concepts still bother me. With the developments of science and technology no one has yet come up with the "Eureka !" that my mind requires to bring comfortable peace.

On the mundane level, the variations occurring in human behavior and lines of thought have been beyond my imperfect mind. Why the cruelty, slaughter, bigotry ? ? ? ?

Life has so many enigmas, one could easily give in to the chaos that is life and fly the white banner of surrender.

The one way open to me to exist without dissolution is to accept the mysteries today and hope my questions will be answered in the space beyond death when hopefully the ability to understand will have grown to accept all. Having a firm belief in the Deity who engineered all this unbelievable beauty and order that is our Universe, the haven where I find shelter is my belief in him and the implicit acceptance of His mysteries. Mystery plays a great part in all beliefs and our time and our groups don't want accept with equanimity that only time will solve all problems.

So, today, space is there ( or not there ) and time proceeds. Thank God we all have enough of each to return the love and kindness which has been lovingly given to us. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% That is a short essay I wrote when I recently started venturing into the who's and why's of existence.

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