John Bayerl: Years In Between

My older brother and I are both fascinated with the Story of Everything. Our own life story began on a farm in the Upper Peninsula where we attended the center of the community, The Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit. It was there that we learned our original story of everything by discussing the sermon of the day, world events and the newest scientific discoveries around the dinner table after Mass on Sunday. It so resonates with us to understand that we have, indeed, been between stories for many years now. My brother attended MTU and had a long career as an electrical engineer, while I, (who didn’t inherit the “math gene”), eventually earned a Ph.D. in school counseling at the UM. We are both fond of the teachings of Teillhard de Chardin, who, in our judgment, understood the emerging story long before it arrived. We are particularly taken with his notion of the increasing complexity and diversity of life. His statement that “at some point in time a cell became an I” is similar in content to the story of how and when everything began. We have nothing to document when that happened, but we can clearly deduce that at some point it did happen. So, no matter how one breaks it down, at some point (maybe they are points, not seconds), darkness turned to light and mere awareness became consciousness. To the extent that these were “all at once” events, I suppose there may be some basis in fact for the creation story. (jbayerl@sbcglobal.net)

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