A Childhood Reflection

Embracing the Past to Find the Present

The following is an excerpt of my book Beauty in the Wreckage: Finding Peace in the Age of Outrage:

I remember walking into my backyard one early summer afternoon when I was six years old. I walked past the clothesline that held the nearly dry sheets, which danced freely and swayed gracefully in the gentle breeze. It was a profound metaphor in that moment of my life. With my back against the ground, surrounded by the cool, green grass, I stared into the vast blue sky, painted with puffy, white cumulus clouds that seemed to completely envelop me. It was in that moment, on that infinitesimally small patch of earth, where I felt wholly embraced in perfect freedom and perfect love.

I have always wondered why that particular memory has stayed with me even to this day. What was it about that simple and seemingly uneventful moment that still touches my heart? What was so transformative about that afternoon that it continues to resonate with my deepest longing? And why, in my spirit, do I keep returning to that place behind my late 1970’s home, where all I did was lie in the grass and gaze at the sky?

To be honest, I think about this moment all the time. How many six-year-olds remember the most seemingly mundane moment and recall it four decades later unless it was so meaningful and evocative that it just cannot be forgotten? I believe it was in that place, in my backyard, lying in the grass when I was six years old, that I definitively knew for the first time that heaven and earth literally came together, and God poured out and showered me with presence and love.

The incredible thing is that I remember it all so vividly and thoroughly. No matter what else was happening around me or in the world, it was in that place at that moment where I knew without question in my heart and soul that I was wholly embraced in perfect freedom and perfect love. I felt fully and completely alive. I believe the reason that moment stays with me is that no matter how far I have wandered, no matter how fractured and disconnected I have become as a weary and war-torn human, I desperately long with every ounce of my being to be enveloped in that overwhelming and all-consuming love once again.

This may come as a surprise to you, but I believe you have been in that place as well, whether you remember it or not. It may not have been behind your house, staring at the sky, but it may have been in a moment of being held by a loved one, or in a moment running into the woods to your secret spot, or in a moment closing your eyes while the sun shone down on your face and the wind blew through your hair, or in a moment rolling down the car windows and singing at the top of your lungs.

Regardless of who you are, where you came from, what your background is, or the life situation in which you grew up, I believe each of us has had that moment, no matter how temporary or fleeting, when we felt wholly embraced in perfect freedom and perfect love. In that moment, we knew without question that, even if only for a split second, heaven and earth came together. We felt fully and completely alive, our hearts experienced a peace and joy we never knew existed, and we wished it would never, ever end.

We have all been there.

Question

1. Can you recall a moment in your life when you felt truly and completely alive, as if heaven and earth had come together? What was happening, and what emotions did you experience in that moment?

Peace,

Brandon