“I just don’t get it,” a friend told me recently. “You talk about us being stardust, about being made of the same stuff as the whole of the universe, about worshipping a cosmic God. I don’t feel connected to a galaxy out there in space somewhere.”
  I do feel that connection. I find it mind-blowing that that all of us, all of everything, emerged from the same cataclysmic explosion. Whoosh! We are pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, where every piece is intimately related to every other piece, and every piece is essential to the whole.
I feel it. But I have trouble explaining it.
Then I thought of the lake out beyond my front windows. Anyone who lives by a lake occasionally throws stones into it.
The stone makes a splash. Ripples spread from the splash. As they spread, they dissipate. They grow weaker. But the ripples never fully disappear. Those ripples keep going right to the far end of the lake, even if individual ripples are no longer detectable as they blend with all the other ripples on the lake.
The ripples closest to the splash are the biggest. Steepest. Strongest. Most easily identified.
I think of the closest ring of ripples as my immediate family. They matter more to me than anything else. Although I am committed to non-violence, I would abandon that conviction in seconds if they were in danger.
The next ripple outwards might be my friends. They too matter to me, but not quite as much.
The ripples continue to expand. My local community, perhaps. The organizations I support. Or my environment -- the garden I nurture, the woods I go walking in, the waterfront where waves lap.
Somewhere farther out are ripples for my country, my ancestors, my profession. I feel a connection to them, but not as much as to my family and friends.
So no, I don’t feel any particular kinship to Galaxy CL J1001+0220 -- recently discovered by NASA at 11.1 billion light-years away from Earth. My puny ripples will have been pretty fully dissipated by the time they get there.
But -- and here’s the point -- I must not think of myself as standing on the shore making ripples in a lake. I am not even the rock thrown into the lake. I am the splash.
As long as I think of myself as separate from the lake, I can never fully identify with the universe I live in.
I am not separate from the lake, or from my ripples. I am part of the lake.
Whatever I do to the lake will inevitably affect me. I am the part of the lake closest to any toxins or poisons I dump into it.
I am not separate. I am the splash; I am the lake.
The wise ones have long known this truth. The prose poem known as Desiderata said, back in 1927, “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars.” Joni Mitchell wrote, “We are stardust, we are golden, We are billion year old carbon…”
We all make our own ripples in the universal pond. But none of us are separate from the pond.
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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN

I got two piles of mail last week -- about the column m dog’s unconditional love, and about the psalm paraphrase that I still don’t know how I deleted before sending.
So first, about the dog.

Doug Giles cited https://www.pinterest.com: “Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love. They depart to teach us about loss. A new dog never replaces an old dog. It merely expands the heart.”
Doug continued, “There’s been a dog in my family since 1963 -- I was only a child then. My first experience of grief was finding him hit by a car on the side of the road. His name was Pepi. There have been several dogs since then -- some large, some small. As I think back, I have no favourites. They all have a piece of my heart. And I’ve grieved the loss of every one. I know they were not human. I know they were just dogs. Yet I still grieved their leaving.
“Unconditional love ‘doggified’ is the perfect expression. Thank you for that new word.”

Wayne Irwin remembered that “Earl Lautenschlager, when Principal of Emmanuel College -- a dog lover par excellence -- when asked by a student if dogs go to heaven, replied: ‘If they don't, I'm not going either!’”

Ron Owens: “Your letter to your dog is personally great for me! Our dog is also named ‘Phoebe’ and my behavior is identical to yours. I am daily mystified by the enormity of pleasure our dog gives us. I often have struggled to somehow understand and equate the dog with our concept of God, wondering if dogs are some kind of hidden joke that we are missing out on by having a disguised supreme being at our feet (or on the bed). More and more though, I'm simply adjusting to the sheer enjoyment and accepting it. Thanks for sharing your feelings about your Phoebe. I don't feel as dippy now.”

My daughter Sharon asked, “Has it occurred to you that dog and God have the same letters?”

Fran Martens loves Border Collies. He asked, “Why would anyone want a dog of lesser intelligence?”
His current Border Collie, however, “has yet to learn the command: ‘Don’t lick me!’ I’ve had other dogs, as well as another Border Collie that followed me around the orchard for years and was a constant companion on daily hikes up on local hills until she was just too old to make the trips and we had to put her down. I spent $400 on a bronzed plaque with an engraved picture of her as well as dates and a comment, and the grandchildren and my wife and I had a small ceremony as we buried her ashes in our garden. If there is a doggy heaven I’m sure she will be there.”

“This column touched me especially,” Keith Simmonds wrote, “as we said goodbye to our dog in May, unexpectedly and suddenly. He was our son's true adored one and adorer. We miss him deeply. Thank you for giving word to that love and its representation of our own changing as we are steeped in the bittersweets of life.”

Sylvia McTavish also shared her experience: “We had a pug for ten years. She had been given to my invalid husband. She bonded with him, the back scratcher; with me, the food lady; with our daughter, the walker. Then our daughter went off to university and left an empty bedroom and gaps in the evening; my husband died and left great gaps in the day while I went to work, and when I visited with friends and left her with two younger friends she cried and cried, great, deep tear streaks rolled down her face; the younger friends thought she would die of a broken heart! She turned herself almost inside out when I went to take her home -- I can only imagine the pain she had when she thought she had been abandoned. She broke my heart when she died, and I buried her in my back yard. Real loyalty walks on four legs!!”

Liz Lemon has been reading my blogs for years, but “this one rang a special note in my heart. I could have been writing it to my dog Suzie. I still miss her even though she has been gone for 10 years. She often featured as one of my sermon illustrations of unconditional love. There are many life lessons we can learn from these wonderful friends. Thanks for sharing Phoebe’s story.”

John Hatchard recommended some additional reading: “What a wonderful expression of your love for Phoebe and appreciation of her unconditional love for you. Maybe her capability to express her love is limited but Bruce Cameron made an unforgettable attempt in his book "A Dog's Purpose" (Pan 2010) to reveal how that love might be experienced from the dog's perspective.’

Among others, Tom Watson drew my attention to a news story, circulating the same week, in which European researchers had given dogs an MRI and discovered that their brains processed language the same way that humans do. Dogs may understand far more than we give them credit for.

John Hopkins commented, “As for Phoebe not understanding a word you say, recent research indicates that dogs do understand much more than we give them credit for.  Apparently, our tone of voice and gesture has the same affect with dogs as with people -- and when they want to, they can also ignore us, often with great success.”

John added “a belated comment on your excellent version of 'Genesis Revisited'. You have put into words what my wife and I, over a lengthy span of time, came to understand and accept as a more plausible interpretation.”

And then, about the missing paraphrase of Psalm 139, Don Sandin, Chris Duxbury, Vern Ratzlaff, John Hatchard, John Shaffer of Bellevue, Helen Arnott, Nenke Jongkind, and Beth Robey Hyde all sent letters of thanks for the second mailing that included it. So I have a double dose of kinship this week.

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

This week’s psalm, the RCL tells me, is Psalm 14, which the NRSV calls “a denunciation of Godlessness.”
Philosopher Blaise Pascal once argued that if you gamble there is no God, and there is, you will have lost everything. If you gamble there is a God, and there isn't, you will have lost nothing. If you gamble there is a God, and there is, you will win everything.

1   Only fools say, "There is no God." 
They delude themselves. 
Their actions reveal their foolishness; 
whatever they do turns out badly.
2   For there is a God, who knows what they are doing.

God loves those who seek justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with their maker.
3   But those who turn their backs on God will lose their way; 
they will stumble in the darkness cast by their own shadows.
4   Can't they see what fools they're making of themselves? 
They crunch people's dreams like popcorn; 
they grow fat on others' famine. 
They deny the reality of a holy presence.
5   When they discover their error, they will subside 
into putrid puddles of sweat, 
For they have challenged God; 
they cannot win.
6   But we who have nothing must rely on God.

7   God, save us from those who prey upon us. 
Topple the proud from their pedestals, 
and restore all of us in a universal Jubilee. 
Then all your people will be glad.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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