My Search for Meaning

Childhood

I was the daughter of a brilliant Methodist pastor and, as far as I know, attended church as soon as I was old enough to be let out of the house. Between Sundays I had my mother, raised in the strict southern Methodist church, expressing great anxiety about my state of grace. I don't really know if this happened often because when it did happen I was so affected.

But in relation to God, I felt awe and longing. I remember an Easter morning when I was small and there were fat dew-drops on the new grass outside the church. I rocked back from foot to foot to watch the rainbow colors shift with a feeling of great awe and gratitude.

When I was in grade school I got an in-grown toenail and the doctor used the world's biggest pair of scissors to ram the world’s biggest wad of cotton between the toenail and my toe. Just as he stabbed my toe, I found that I had left my body and was lying in the arms of Christ.

I remember sitting on my bed pondering the meaning of infinity when I suddenly imagined myself falling through the galaxy and realizing that I would keep falling forever. It was a terrifying experience.

It was on the same bed that I contemplated the many stories I had been told about the unfortunate children in Africa and China. The woman who watched over the cafeteria in the grade school reminded us--every day as she insisted that we every bite of our tasteless, limp, slimy canned government-surplus vegetables: "Think of the starving children in China!" she would roar at us.

I had a keen conscience at that age and felt that I was somehow personally responsible for those starving children, though I could not follow the logic that assumed it would help them if I ate the food. No, I thought, sitting on my bed. I had to do more. I had extraordinary parents who declared their love for me every day. I was smart and rich (relative to the starving children).

I must have been eight or nine when I decided that the meaning of my life was to sacrifice everything I had to save as many people as possible.

(rest of story pending...)

Sheryl H-T