God Dust

Ever had That Weird Thing where an every day event occurs or you happen onto scene and suddenly – for no apparent reason – your heart swells up and gets too big for your chest and tears prick your eyes and you feel full of something you can’t express? What is that? Is it joy or happiness or gratitude … I don’t know. For me, it’s haunting, like a memory I can’t quite grasp or a dream that slips away just as I open my eyes.

It makes me lonely, but in a good way.

I admit, my brain isn’t wired right. (Remind me to tell you of the time my son cut his foot in half with a chainsaw.) But the other day I had what I can only describe as an epiphany. A light bulb moment.

Let me set the scene: It’s fall. The air is apple-like. Moist. Cool. Ripe. Crisp. Golden. We were building fence, which isn’t fun any way you slice it. My job for the afternoon was clipping: wiring those little metal clips around the Tpost and barbed wire. Five wires per pole. Five notches between each wire. 65 posts per mile. Dig out a clip, hook it on the left side of the wire, lever it behind the post, around the other side, grab the end with a pair of pliers and twist it around twice. Let’s face it, not exactly rocket science. My son had lent me his MP3, which makes me nervous to use because I might step on a rattlesnake, but I was so bored I listened until the battery was gone and the voices started sounding like Vincent Price.  

So I’m alone. As usual. I bend in half, digging in my 5 gallon bucket for a clip. In the distance, I hear the drone of the tractor in the creek, digging post holes. A crow caws. I straighten and BAM. That Weird Thing happened.  It was late and the afternoon shadows were slicing long and purplish across the tops of the apache plume and sage. In between, tufts of bear grass jutted up, outlined with a feathery crystal light. The cottonwoods had just started to turn and their dark trunks stood in stark contrast to the brilliant gold foliage.

I cried.

And I didn’t have a tissue.

I admit, I got a little annoyed. (This is probably why I live alone, by the way…) Arms akimbo, I stared up at the sky. WHAT THE HECK? I’ve been trying to hear you for 5 years, God! And nothin’. Not one word. Now You talk to me. Here? On the fence line?  What’s up with that?

And WHAT is That Weird Thing?

Then came the epiphany. Now don’t you for one second think I’m making this up because, honestly, I’m just not that smart. Okay? And clearly, not that religious. Let’s just get that out in the open. Full disclosure.

I heard this: You miss Me.

I scratched my nose. Duh.

No, not you, the soul. You… the actual physical self… misses heaven.

And that fast, just like a flash, I knew what He meant. The human body, well heck, everything, is made up of building blocks. And those blocks just get smaller and smaller as we learn more and more about them. The tiniest particle, whatever that is, is still composed of something else. Something even smaller. Until we get to whatever the opposite of infinite is. The end.. or the beginning, however you want to look at it. And that is God. The beginning and the end.

My brother the scientist could explain this much better, I’m sure. I wish he had received the epiphany instead of me, but as I recall Moses tried that excuse and it got him in a bunch of trouble.

So my pre-existent particle self was from God and with God and therefore, it stands to reason, that it remembers God and heaven in a way that my brain and heart and soul, being bathed in this world, cannot.

I read about a normal guy who had an accident. A head injury. And after he healed, he could play Mozart and Bach and Chopin with ease and an elegance that stunned everyone who heard him. Brought them to tears. Made them feel That Wierd Thing.

He’d never touched a piano before in his life until the accident.

Savants. How do you explain that?

I think this is the secret: We’re all pieces of a gigantic puzzle. We all have within us, a memory of heaven. And when we remember, and share that memory, whether it’s through art, or music, or literature, or nursing, or being the best dang tax accountant we can be, we reflect that piece of heaven that was ours to share. We become little tiny mirrors who, when combined, create a tapestry of memories, that when laid next to the generations that came before and after, complete the picture.

It’s like we’re an interactive jigsaw puzzle without the box to show us what we’re supposed to look like.

Which means, I’m not a mistake. I’m not an accident. I’m not irrelevant. And neither are you. And neither is the stranger sitting next to you on the subway with the IPod and the dirty fingernails. Neither is your crazy mother in law.

Maybe this is nothing new to the universe. But it’s dang sure new to me.

I tried explaining this to my son at the end of the day when he came to pick me up. He listened, nodded occasionally. Then he turned and gave me a quizzical stare. Reaching across the cab of the truck, he thumped my forehead lightly.  “Is that what goes on in there all the time?”

“Pretty much.”

He put the truck into gear and we lurched forward. “Weeelllll,” he said, drawing the word out to two syllables. “That. Explains. A lot.”