Who Are You?

I had a thought recently. I can't remember what led to it but I think it was something I read. At any rate, this verse came to mind. 

What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? Look, those who wear fine clothing are found in kings' palaces.  But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. Matthew 11:8-9

The verses are a part of a statement issued by Jesus about John the Baptist. The disciples had come with a message from John asking if Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah.  He sent the disciples back to John with a clear answer. He related his miracles, which in essence said, "Yes, that's who I am."

It occurred to me that a lot of people are asking that same question even today. "Who are you?" The question sounds simple but I suspect it is visceral, rather than just curiosity. Perhaps it is incised on our souls and we can't help but ask it?

If you read the whole chapter, you can see that Jesus gives an overview of how the people received John and compared it to his own reception. They saw John's stellar but stringent life and called him a devil. They saw Jesus living life just as those around him, working, spending time with his family, associating with all manner of people and called him a drunkard and a glutton.

I can hear the priest, their voices scathing and looking down their long noses. "Who are you?"  I can hear the cripple, his voice stressed and eyes pleading. "Who are you?"

The frightened, the lonely, the destitute, the wounded, the broken, the dejected, the hopeless, and the lost in the middle of their despair, have screamed the question. "Who are you?"   On my worst days, when the pain is so bad I can't cry, when my body hurts, my heart hurts, and my mind can't hang on to a clear thought I ask the same question. "Who are you?" 

Yes, even those who have believed all their lives have moments when we ask that question. I'm sorry if it offends anyone, but if you say you never asked, I won't believe you. Everyone has experienced a time when the bottom drops out of their world and they don't know which way is up. It is a cliched experience that we all have at some point. Don't worry if you haven't, you will. And in the middle of that moment, when all seems lost and broken, and confusion is smothering the life out of you, the question will be there. From the deepest, darkest core of your being, something will whisper in desperation, "Who are you?"

At some point, you'll hear it. It may not happen instantly. In fact, it may be hours, days, weeks, or years before you hear it but if you're listening, you'll hear it. It will be like a whisper on a breeze, floating into your mind when you are so overwhelmed with life that you can't help but think it.

"Who are you!"

We're not the first to ask.

"Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders? Exodus 15:11

All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him? Psalm 35:10 

Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, Psalm 113:5

You'll find the answer buried in the dark and despair, beneath pain and grief, and the weight of hopelessness. You'll have to rip open the wounds, uncover the fear, and relive the thing that brought you to this place. You'll have to dig to find it. For all precious treasures are buried beneath the weight of the world. Hidden from all but the determined seeker.

Who did you come to see?

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Psalm 48:1

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. Psalm 95:3 

Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee: Jeremiah 32:17

The Search for Happiness

I've been missing Jerry a lot of late. I usually do between November and February. I suppose it came late this year. It isn't a continuous pain but a sudden, stabbing in the hollow places of my heart. 

Yesterday, as I drove home from work through a neighborhood with some lovely homes, I was assailed with longing for something I think I was unaware that I had ever possessed. The average-middle class homes arrayed along a gentle, curving street with neat yards that had received years of attention were a bit above the lower middle-class income we had but it wasn't about that. It was more.

Yearning is a little used word these days but that is the only word that works for what I was feeling. As I drove along, my mind filled in blanks with children tumbling on a green carpet and a small dog barking and scrambling to be a part of the excitement. The windows glowed with evening lights and the smell of fresh cut grass and barbeque seemed to drift on the air. But it didn't. It was all in my head and I ached with the thoughts of it all. 

I left the neighborhood and entered my own, slightly more modest section. As I did so, in the midst of all that painful yearning I heard myself say, "I've had a good life." There is a sense of disbelief even when I write it because I don't remember ever thinking that in my whole life. Life has been hard. At times, nearly impossible. There is not enough time, nor am I inclined to share the worst of it. 

Recently, my mind began to trot out memories that I didn't really forget but rather, had neglected in favor of less appealing ones. And ... the truth is ... I've had a great life. I'm overwhelmingly blessed and favored. I know this. That was a new feeling, an almost devastatingly painful feeling. It hurt terribly to think it. Not because it wasn't a wonderful realization but because I had failed to recognize it until I am an old woman. This is something we should know when we're young. Maybe other people do. I don't know. I just know I never knew it. At least, I don't think I did.

The feeling clung to me the rest of the evening and today but I still had trouble believing it. My life had so many twists and turns that it was hard to imagine it as "great".

I was given away to grandparents and it was the best thing that could have happened to me, despite a childhood filled with the ugliness of alcohol. I had wonderful aunts, uncles, and cousins, the memories of whom still make my heart smile. 

I was 17 when Mama died but I married a wonderful man who only wanted to make me happy the rest of his life. And he tried every day, for the next 35 years.

At 21, I was in Europe and I walked the halls of ancient castles and palaces. I climbed trails in the Bavrian Alps, slaked my thrist from an icy artisian well, and gazed over parapets at beautiful green valleys. I strolled the Champs Elysee, climbed the Eiffel Tower, and stared at the flying buttresses and stained glass of Notre Dame. I shopped in Germany. I lived in five US states. I've slept under stars, hiked woodland trails, and swam in the ocean. I've played in the sand, dug in the dirt, and laid on the grass and painted clouds. I've laughed, cried, and raged over wonderful, foolish, and dreadful things.

It is a mystery to me how I missed all that. Although, I think the truth is that I didn't miss it... then. I miss it all now. I crave the excitement and the laughter and the mystery that each of those days provided. I long for the feeling of walking along a Paris street on Jerry's arm. Now life seems so tame, so bland, so predictable. For someone who stood in the throne room of a once great king, today feels anticlimatic. 

Yet, today whispered a secret in my ear. "I've had a great life." I've been blessed with more than wealth, more than fame. I've rocked my babies and watched them grow into wonderful men. I sang to my grandchild and am amazed at her beautiful soul and smile that blinds me. I'm blessed to find a new friend when my son remarried, and gained two grandchildren. I still have aunts, uncle, cousins, and siblings that shower me with love.  

No, I have not done all the things I wanted to do but I have done a lot of things I never dreamed I would do. So, perhaps happiness is not something you look for, but rather something you find. And a wonderful life is determined solely by your perspective.

Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Darkness

I am very interested in science. I actually like reading articles relating to astronomy and the creation of the universe. Yes, I am a Christian who believes in science! God is a lot smarter than we give him credit. He actually understands the theory of relativity far better than Einstein did when HE told it to Einstein! And since time was created as a plaything for man and means absolutely nothing to God, he isn’t all tied up in controversy about how long it took to create the universe. I like that about him. We can talk.

Today, I ran across this article on my MSN home page New Cosmic Theory Unites Dark Forces. It drew me in and I am glad it did.  “A new theory says that dark matter and dark energy could arise from a single dark fluid that permeates the whole universe.” © 2007 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

I ended up reading several articles on the topic. It is fascinating reading if you understand basic astronomy and a general idea of the dark matter theories.  If you don’t, by the time you read them you probably will have a fair grasp of the subject. It gave me quite a lot of food for thought that, since I am a Southern woman whose culture says food should be shared, I thought I’d share.

A lady once told me that we can find truth anywhere. You just have to look for it. I learned this to be true. If you don’t search, you won’t find. Searching requires that you question everything and everyone. Science is all about questions but Christians are discouraged from asking questions. To us, questions signify doubt. To question God would be doubt and doubt is sin. I know, we're nuts a lot of the time. I lost my fear of asking God questions when he started answering them.

Sadly, there is such enmity between scientist and Christians that I doubt it will ever be resolved but both camps are right about some things. You notice I didn’t say between science and Christianity? It’s people who have the problem. The biggest problem is they both want to be right about everything. That’s impossible.

So, I read, I study, I ponder things not many women my age and background study. I allow myself to question and let those questions percolate. Then I ask God, “What about this? Is this possible?” He usually grins and says, “Anything is possible.”

I’ve spent the last couple of hours reading these articles and formulating questions and tossing out a few of my own. The conclusion I arrived at is surprising. . . to me, anyway. I’ve provided several excerpts from three articles that will reveal my discovery. The links will take you to the articles themselves.

The above article describes dark matter and dark energy: “Dark matter, as originally hypothesized, is extra hidden mass that astrophysicists calculate is necessary for holding together fast-turning galaxies. . . . seems to be everywhere, acting as a scaffolding for galaxy clusters and the whole structure of the universe.” In other words, everything that exists is suspended from this structure.

“On the other hand, dark energy is needed to explain the more recently-discovered acceleration of the universe's expansion. . . . It supposedly exists all throughout space, delivering a pressure that counteracts gravity.”Gravity, remember, pushes against things. As I understand this, dark energy acts as a restraint on the effect of gravity. It sounded like cement to me. And what do you know, in the next article I found my confirmation.

In Dark Matter May Lurk Between Galaxies the scientist says, “Dark matter acts as gravitational glue, holding millions or billions of stars together in galactic globs or disks. Without it, "our own galaxy should have fallen apart by now," said Frederic Bournaud, an astrophysicist with the French Atomic Energy Commission. "So dark matter — this unseen force — is somewhere keeping it glued together.” © 2007 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

So how do they know this stuff exists? Who says it is even real? Can you see it? Can you feel it?

Well, in Dark Matter Mapped in 3-D Detail the scientist says: “Decades' worth of observations have found that all the matter we can see in surrounding galaxies doesn't account for the gravitational effects of those galaxies. In fact, there appears to be six times more dark matter out there than the ordinary matter we can see. . . . there is no picture of it and there's no known way to detect it directly.”

“Even though the matter itself couldn't be seen, astronomers detected its effect by analyzing the gravitational effect of that matter on light rays from more distant light sources.” © 2008 MSNBC Interactive

This had become positively religious! There is something out there, holding it all together that no one can see. I’ll insert a long pregnant pause here while you digest the ramifications of this.  It also means that while they can’t see it, they know it exists because they can see the effects of it on other visible things, like light.

Wow, a substance they can’t see but they believe MUST be there . . . something that holds the universe together.

Do you see it, too?

The final statement in this last article is brilliant and so powerful I am amazed. "Frankly speaking, these are just fancy words we use to name something we do not understand," he said. “If a simpler model (with a single word) can explain all the data, then cosmologists will gladly accept it,” Boehmer said.

A single word?

Uh. . . God?

And Boehmer was wrong. They never accept it.