I remember reading in a book about the physics of the universe that one mathematical theory for the universe leaves open the possibility that creation is destroyed and recreated at each moment. Don't know if I got that interpretation quite right or not, but it does make one think about the grace of God that sustains creation from moment to moment. Our lives are lived heartbeat to heartbeat. There is grace that our hearts continue to beat and we know the stark reality of how short life can be when a friend or family members suffers a heartbeat and the beating stops. All this sets me to thinking about the grace in our lives in between those heart-beating moments, those times of silence of waiting for the next movement of life, those times when the creation ceases to exist and we are awaiting again to see if the universe will be recreated.
The times of silence are the hardest. Many folks have found themselves wrapped in those moments of silence waiting for life to begin anew. In hospital rooms. In courtrooms. In the midst of divorce. When a career is lost. Watching someone we love suffer deeply. And we ask the question of God, when will this moment of silence cease and we can hear laughter and the other wonderful sounds of creation again. God, when will the heartbeats begin again?
I can't help but think of moments of silence in the scriptures: Noah in the ark waiting for the water to subside; Adam and Eve in the garden both hoping for and hoping against the coming of God in the evening after they had sinned; the silence of the exile in Babylon awaiting God's call back to the Holy Land; the silence of those imprisoned for their faith; and of course the silence of the tomb after they buried Jesus. One has to think that even the angels wondered what exactly God had in mind.
In those long moments of silence, those moments in between the heartbeats, those times when the universe seems to have been destroyed and we await its creation anew, even then God is present. We often don't recognize his presence at the moment of destruction, but only after we look back from the newly created world and understand God was indeed there in the silence. After all Genesis 1 tells us that before creation in the beginning when there was chaos God's presence hovered there. May God's Spirit hover today over those who are living in between the heartbeats.
I have an image that comes to mind as one of those "between the heartbeat" moments for me. Coming up on 8 years ago!! I remember sitting on my back porch step of my old house in HC, awake int he middle of the hot summer night, couldn't sleep for knowing what was to happen within a short time and thinking I was separate from the whole world. But I know God was there. Maybe didn't feel it then because of the solitude, or maybe felt it most then with the clear starry sky and my dog who approached my sad self, but God is there.
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