"Apologies..................."

”From our hemisphere, only one other galaxy, Andromeda, is large enough and close enough (a mere two million light years away) to see with the naked eye. It showed up on star charts long before the invention of the telescope and, until recently, no one could know that the little blob of light marked the presence of another galaxy, one twice the size of the Milky Way and home to half a trillion stars, or that these next-door neighbors were but two of one hundred billion galaxies likewise swarming with stars…..”

“If the God who engineered creation with such precision professes some whit of interest in what takes place on this speck of a planet, the least I can do is wander away from the streetlights more often and look up…..”

The above quotes were captured from sources now unknown to me, but represent where my mind, in almost any moment not occupied with some task requiring undivided attention, finds itself swimming, wheels turning, questions asked, answers explored, my days a constant journey down a path other than the one my feet occupy. One fellow, a friend, never fails to remind me how weird I am, the same guy who openly admits, having been “called to prophesy”, to now being held responsible for reaching as many as possible during any church service with “a word from God”. Nonetheless, his description of me is probably not all that far from wrong. Most people, in socializing with others, especially men, tend to turn in conversation towards business, sports, or politics. I found myself, last night, at a church dinner, seated at a table with four other guys, the topic engaged being pick-up trucks and how much money was saved in purchasing a new boat by bartering with someone else on Craig’s List. It was a last minute decision, made out of a desire to hear the guy scheduled to preach afterwards; but, having passed on the pork chop and baked potato and with my ice-cream and cake dessert already consumed, the old man escaped to the running track over the gymnasium, preferring solitude over the discussion before him. Do I not like people? No; it’s me who is the problem, if indeed there is one. To each their own. It is the mystery of it all that holds my interest, both humanity at large and divinity beyond the veil. It is the encounter I seek, meaning in the existence; and, while sometimes that no doubt means listening to your neighbor’s perspectives, enjoying interchange, each of us part of the bigger picture, we all remain individual in our identity. I just happen to be one of the “hard to understand” bunch. So it has always been; and so, evidently (at 72), it always will be…….