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I suppose it must have been the late summer. I had been spending summer on an idyllic Island off the coast. We had a cabin with no running water or electricity. My job was to go and fill up the water containers from the communal well. Cows would cautiously approach and stare curiously whilst the smaller ones would shuffle through for front-row viewing.
At dusk, we would light paraffin lamps to illuminate the nights. My father would read children’s books. We were all ears as he read Heidi, Tales From 1001 Nights and Chinese Folk Tales. We ate freshly made pancakes washed down with jam and small glasses of sweet stout. The lamp caused a sibilant sound as it burned up kerosene. It flickered and fostered sleepiness. It finally slumbered for the evening, and we would retire.
I lay there in my bed watching the stars cascading through the window; every one of them. And I wondered if the Chinese farmer boys, or the Bedouin shepherd boys or the milk maids in the Swiss mountains were seeing and feeling the sense of awe that I felt in my heart as the universe entered in. God whispered his presence.
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Childhood memories like that visited me often and reminded me of my spiritual awareness
from an early age, albeit in my own childish way. I had an ache to know who created the stars, the moon, and the beautiful island that was so distant from my industrial town where idle men lingered on street corners like characters from a Loury painting. Where post-war tenements blocked natural light. Where unkempt dogs savaged through bins for scraps. Where it always seemed, there was better places to be raised.