What Could a Child Possible Know About Life?
It must have been late summer. I was spending my days on a small, idyllic island off Scotland’s west coast. We have a cabin—or perhaps it was more of a hut—with no running water and no electricity. Each day my task was to carry water from the communal well. Cows would edge closer, cautious yet curious. The larger ones stood and stared; the smaller shuffled forward for a better view. Under their unblinking gaze, I grew oddly self-conscious.
At dusk we lit paraffin lamps, their warm glow pushing back the darkness. My father would read aloud from children’s books, and we listened, utterly absorbed, as he carried us through Heidi, Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, and Chinese folk tales. We ate freshly made pancakes with home made jam, and washed down with small glasses of sweet stout.
The lamp hissed softly as it burned the kerosene, its flicker inviting drowsiness. Eventually it surrendered to the night, and we went to bed.
Lying there, I watched the stars pour through the window—countless, unmistakable, alive. I wondered whether the Chinese farmer boys and the Bedouin shepherd boys and milkmaids high in the Swiss mountains were seeing the same stars and feeling the same quiet awe at God’s creation that filled my heart as the universe seemed to draw near.
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
— Psalm 46:10
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