Another Excerpt

I did something a few nights ago that I haven’t in a long time. I took my cup of tea, went outside and looked up. The last time I had looked up at the night sky, I had marvelled at its beauty (yellow stars!) with you. After everything, it had been too painful to even do that, so I was surprised at how easily the hurt settled in, made itself comfortable and then allowed me to continue my musing.

I stared and stared and then stared some more, because I couldn’t stop staring. When did I forget that particular shade of deep black-blue that only a moonless night can have? And the stars…did someone polish them in the months I have been hiding away in the shadows of my heart? Because these stars twinkled and sparkled like none I can remember seeing. It was as if the air had become thinner or my eyesight a little clearer or perhaps, maybe… the heavens had shifted just that bit closer?

Have you ever looked into the eyes of another person and seen something so deep, so strong, so fearsomely overwhelming that the world seemed to take a deep breath and stand still? And no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t tear your eyes from theirs? That’s how I felt. My palms were stinging from the prickly heat of the ceramic mug, my neck had a crick from looking back so far, my knees felt weak from the weight of cosmos bearing down on me and my eyes were burning from the uncountable pinpoints of light searing them, but…but, it was impossible to look away.

So there I stood on a slab of cracked concrete, wondering at the mind-boggling extent spread out all around me, at how endless the space was in all directions! Each of those pretty sparkles was a solid mass, gigantic beyond imagination. Some were entire galaxies like our own (galaxies!) and I could see them merely as hazy blots. What about the distances between them? Chock-full of more cosmic debris and yet so far way that it looked like just a few inches of emptiness instead. And even that emptiness didn’t last…

It was a bit like you feel when you enter a dark room and are blinded for a few moments. Then gradually, your eyes become accustomed to the lack of light and you begin to make out objects. The more I stared at that inky sea, the more stars appeared in places they hadn’t been a second before. Faintly shining dots overlapped each other – layer upon layer – creating a depth that spiralled outwards into eternity. There was no light at the end of this tunnel, the light was woven into the very fabric of its walls.

Slowly the sky began to take on a consistency like clotted cream – thick and heavy – into which someone might have stirred crystals of sugar that sparkled, reflecting Divine Light with every motion of the Cosmic Hand. Then, as I stood there covered by that rich thickness, it all came alive…

One by one, each twinkling synced with those around it until finally the entire sky seemed to be gently throbbing. And in the next moment, I felt my entire being expand and contract in unison with it, as if in having managed to find the pulse of the universe, I had torn through the fabric of space-time and become trapped in its veins…until I realised it was because everything had synced itself to the most familiar of all music to my self – the rhythm of my own heartbeat.

I’ve always believed that there are other life-forms somewhere out there. But now I know there IS life out there. It’s the same Life that is in me and around me, it’s the same Life that is in everything that exists. It doesn’t matter if we ever find a new species on another planet – it will still originate from the same Life Source as us. (Why are we hunting so desperately for answers that we already have?)

In that moment, I knew that God was staring me in the face, giving me His Full Attention. No one had ever gone to so much effort to show such Love in just one glance, so I opened up to Him. I told Him all the things that I was afraid of for you and for me, the things I regretted from Yesterday, the things I was unsure about Today and the things I hoped so much for Tomorrow. I must have whined a lot more than I thanked, begged a lot more than I shared, wanted a lot more than I could promise in return. But it was a nice chat, I’m pretty sure about that even though I don’t remember much of it.

I don’t remember how long I stood there or when I sat down or what I sat on. I don’t remember when I finished my tea or how I managed to come back inside, when at the slightest encouragement from Him, I think I would have simply floated up into that Sparkling Tunnel to Eternity and never missed a thing I left behind.

However, I do remember wondering why I hadn’t done this in so long. Did I get so caught up in you, myself and everything that’s happened that I forgot Him? I always thought that in this friendship we had, God was an Overseer, looking out for both of us. But I’m beginning to think that might not have been the case. None of my relationships are about me and another person. All of them are about me and Him, the other person is only there to make me appreciate His Perfection. In reality, I only have one relationship – the one I was born into and the one I will die in. I have only one Soul mate and one Love, and He found me before I even knew to look for Him.

I will always have Someone to talk to, Someone who understands me, Someone who accepts me just as I am. I can be as high-minded as I want with Him, because there’s no limit to the summit or the depth or the vastness of our relationship. I know I loved talking to you and sometimes I miss our conversations so much I play out old ones in my head, but despite all that, these talks with Mr. God are different.

After all, who else can I chat with who can ask me, “How much Starlight would you like with that tea?”

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From the same author as last time, original here