Epiphany

Sometimes, I am struck by the wonder of my existence.

Most recently, it happened to me yesterday in church.  I was sitting with the other musicians, looking at the back of the reverend’s head as he made the weekly announcements.  The same kind of thing that happens every week.  I was a bit tuned out—I blame lack of sleep—and so really I was just letting my mind wander.  And quite suddenly I thought, Where am I?  What am I doing here?  And I didn’t mean here in the cafeteria that my church uses as a facility, sitting on a plastic chair and waiting for the songs to start.  I meant here, inside this ball of bone and flesh, living in a nest of electric and chemical signals, looking out of a pair of human eyes. 

This feeling comes on me every so often.  I could be walking down the street, or reading a book, or talking to friends, and BAM.  I am filled with astonishment at the thought of myself.  In these moments, I try to picture myself, try to pull up an image of who and what I am.  Sometimes I think of the face I see in the mirror, that round-cheeked girl with big teeth, lots of unruly hair, and questioning eyes.  But other times I can’t think of anything.  In those times, I can’t pin myself down.  How did I get here?  I wonder.  Why am I here?

It isn’t just myself that amazes me, though.  It’s everything I see around me.  Yesterday I looked at the sea of cables and the faulty speakers that make up our sound system, and I think, someone made these.  Someone made them, and someone sold them, and someone bought them.  Someone knew exactly how to set them up, plugged in each cord exactly where it needs to go, can tweak and adjust them so that the very sounds we make are changed.  Someone does that every single week. 

Someone made that guitar, smoothing the wood, setting the glue.  Someone made those strings, and someone else uncurled them to stretch over the bridge.  Someone figured out exactly how to translate metal and wood and air into music.  Someone built these walls, and made this chair, and set the tiles in the floor. 

Someone made these fantastic red boots I’m wearing, and someone put the clearance sticker on them so that I could bring them home.  My clothes, my earrings, the hairspray in my hair—in those moments, everything seems to be a miracle, and I can feel the touch of thousands of people, how I am connected to all of them in even the smallest ways.  And each of them is connected to a thousand more, and a thousand more…

We can’t live alone.  We just can’t do it.  In this world, everything we see, touch, buy, eat, drink, was somehow brought to us by someone else.  We take it for granted, but it’s true. 

Someone made my clock, my vitamins, this keyboard I’m hammering on, the monitor where I watch the words rolling across the screen.  Someone put the tea in the bag, and someone arranged the pipes so I could put water into the kettle someone made, and someone wired my stove so I could heat the water, and someone made this mug in which I put the tea, and someone milked the cow and someone harvested the sugar… 

You see?  We live in a web of people who are making things and learning things and each working in their small way to help all of us survive.

This is why I go to church.  This is why I believe in a higher power, and submit to that higher power.  I can’t believe that all these someones just sprang out of chaos and, purely by chance, became these inquisitive creatures sitting inside our flesh.  I don’t want to believe that.  No—Someone made them, those round shields of bone, those firing synapses, the hands that make and hammer and grasp and reach.  That Someone wants them to keep making things, keep reaching out to each other, keep spinning the web.  That Someone wants us to be connected this way, and gives us what we need to do it.

I don't know about you, but I think that's amazing.