Ohio. Another seventy-five-degree day in November. This afternoon I sat in a park and watched the ducks, which was out of character for me. A bright daytime moon hung in the sky, surrounded by the vapor trails of airplanes.
In antiquity, we told stories to explain this uncanny sight. That god’s plan for our world has gone awry, and the daylight moon is an apology for these errors. Or that the moon refused to live in the same sky as the sun, asking, “Of what use is a candle in broad daylight?” I’d like to live in a world of apologetic gods and talking satellites.
I turned on the radio, and a woman was reading a letter from a man in prison who wondered about the opening scene of the Bible: “God said, let there be light. So one would then have to reason that God himself was dwelling in the darkness.”
Tonight a cheerful old blackjack dealer told me about “the ministry of presence,” a term from smoke-filled church basements about the value of simply showing up.
