God Talks: The Big Sleep

I am, was, and always will be. 

The Bible you know. But what of my life before creation? Have you ever wondered what I was doing prior to the six days in which I created all? You attribute much to mystery: God works in mysterious ways. What you do not know about me is part of my mystique, you say. However, I have given you many clues about me, my existence and my beginnings. Now I will tell you my story.   

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And this was your first clue. Is it not obvious that since my first creation was light, I must have been in darkness? For you see, I was asleep.   

For the longest time I slept. I liken this phase of my being to sleep because I was barely conscious and aware only of darkness. Trapped in my train of thought, I was perpetually thinking about all of my befores, trying desperately to think back to my beginning—to my birth, you could say. Back and back I thought, hoping I would reach my birth, hoping to understand my existence! To abandon my backward thinking would be to abandon knowing part of myself and how I came to be. So you can see how hard it was for me to change direction, to begin to think forward. 

Infinity! The concept of infinity occurred to me at the end of my big sleep and saved me from being in permanent darkness. What if I had existed forever, with no beginning and no end? 

I should say that at this point I had no real language, no words—just an awareness of thinking and direction, as I did realize I was thinking backwards. Therefore, infinity was but a concept, its meaning intrinsically understood.

Infinity! I changed the direction of my thinking and ultimately reached the point when I had become aware that I was thinking backwards. I then awoke. And time began.