...the beginning...

What, then, was in the beginning???

A Bang?

A void or a vacuum?

A Word?

A Creator?

Like the ancients said, chaos!

The space within the great yawning, gaping mouth of the creator

at the apex of inhaling just two moments before the word was spoken

that hurled forth creation.

And in the moment before,

when the exhaling breath of God rushed forth into the void,

chasing away the vacuum as the heat and moisture, the substance,

the divine phlegm, fills up the space!

The first moment, then, as the first word was spoken and time began,
the clock began

(though faster for us holding still and slower for us moving quickly!),

and a sound like a shock wave set all matter a-thrummin'

as the very sinew of the smallest subatomic particles began to vibrate,

each settling into its own rhythm that makes it all distinctive.

And then the collisions began!

As the atoms clump and cluster and the matter bumps and sticks

and from gases clumping come clouds

and even the clouds began igniting and burned

as new elements formed from the flame, and

new clumps grew

and were slung about the flaming massive centers

of each spinning gravitational top

all dancing and spinning like some mad ball at the creation of the cosmos.

Then cooling clumps of material

and the very ground we walk on

and the cooling gases settled in the low places, very deep.

And the condensation formed above
and the basic building blocks were there
to develop, evolve, resolve into (after some time had passed)
a walking-talking-thinking-thing which was because it thought.

Does it matter how it came to be or only that it is?

Was it like a ball of clay from which the shape was carefully formed?

Or perhaps a ball of matter (all matter) vibrating with the force
of all creations' potential energy waiting to unfurl?

Perhaps merely the wave of a divine magic wand, but that lacks creativity.

And surely a creator
of the sun and moon and earth and stars and all plants and animals and fish in the sea
is more creative than that.

And in the very words
the vibration of creation and
the process of a million years
to enjoy the development of a universe,
so mysterious in its form and all its workings.        

A reluctant Michigander

I am not a Michigander by birth or by choice.  I am a transplant, in much the same way a whirley tree-seed is lifted by the wind and deposited, and there it lays its roots without any say as to its location.  So too, here I have been deposited and my gnarly roots have stretched and now stubbornly hold tight to any number of unseen fast-holds.  I could be pulled up and moved across the way – but first I would have to disentangle myself from Michigan.

I am a transplanted southerner, in the long tradition of transplanted southerners, carried north by opportunity, though not my opportunity, but my father’s.  I am a Louisianan by birth, but my family spent the first few years bouncing back and forth between Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Michigan.  Preschool, kindergarten and first grade were spent up north.  However, those years, and especially the years preceding them, remind me of a flash-back-memory-scene from so many movies.  The type of scene illustrated by photographs, or even better, silent home movies flashing images of family and play and holidays.  All snippets, with a narrative told over the arc of the montage.  Visions of a past life that slowly slip away.  I don’t remember the connecting parts of those memories, the sinew and muscle of the scenes, just the highlights that create more of an atmosphere than a comprehensive tale.

Of Gettysburg I have many fond, but scattered memories.  Perhaps it is because that was the age of discovery.  I was a preschooler and first encountering many things beyond the walls of home.  Everything seemed new and exciting.  Old churches, battlefields, girls, older kids...

Of Louisiana, I had the first feelings of independence and self identity.  I walked to school, independent of parents.  I could go where I wanted (okay, I always went to school).  I rode my bike far and wide: from the movie theater down the street to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to my friends house a block over, to the Mississippi River a few blocks away.

But of Michigan (after we moved back when I was in fourth grade) the memories that stick out the most are only negative memories of the place (even despite good memories of a good many people).  Being moved away from a good friend down south.  The bitter cold of Michigan winter (compared with mild Louisiana winter – I never got into winter sports, and as a result I was a couch potato most of the frigid, frigid year).  The rough transition of being a new kid.  The awkwardness of middle school.  It was not till high school that I started to feel comfortable in my own skin in a social setting.  By that point, I had nothing but negative feelings about the state.  I admit that they were not rational, but they were firmly entrenched. 

And I kept finding more reasons to dislike living in the state.  I still hated the cold.  I watched too much local news and it made me hate Detroit (I realize now the problem with local news sensationalism).  I did not like living in the suburbs (still true).  I became a teenager, and therefore I did not like living with my family.  And my family lived in Michigan, so…

Then I went to college in Kalamazoo.  I really liked Kalamazoo.  So I made an exception for Kalamazoo and the surrounding environs (later I went to Lake Michigan and later still, Mackinac, and I made exceptions for those places too).

I graduated and moved back to Southeast Michigan.  I still did not like living in the Suburbs, but living near family had its advantages.  Plus, now I was living on my own–-out from under my parent’s roof.  But then I was trying to find a job, and since Michigan was the only state--not hit by a hurricane--to be in a recession in 2005, then I had that to dislike about Michigan!  And still I wanted to move!  And my illogical, passionate disdain for Michigan burned still deep inside me. 

But then we bought a condo (why?), and had another child (oh yeah), and now they are in school and I now I am in school and all my family’s here (after-all), and I do have a job, and we are never gonna be able to sell our condo in this economy... 

...and though I may be a transplanted Southerner, I have been gone nigh-on twenty years and would not likely feel at home in the south anyway.  And though Michigan has not grown on me, I once realized that I have grown in Michigan for nigh-on twenty years.  And so I have become a reluctant Michigander. 

A Holiday Message from Mike: Why I’m Not an Atheist

I read a fantastic blog by comedic genius Ricky Gervais about why he is an Atheist (I suggest you read it too to make your own conclusions).  I say fantastic not because I agree with his conclusions, for I am not an Atheist, but because I understand where he is coming from.  Not only can I entirely appreciate why he is an atheist, but I think he raises an important question that any Christian should not be afraid of, but embrace:  Why do you believe in God?

Read more »