The Dandelion

Time travel has always fascinated me. I think it all started when I read Half Magic by Edward Eager when I was a kid. Since then, H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, C.S. Lewis and more recently, Diana Gabaldon and Audrey Niffenegger, are authors that have kept me mesmerized with the tantalizing notion of bending the dimension of time and walking (or falling) into a different century, culture, and country.

When we were little, my sister and I used to pick almost-dead dandelions--to us they were delicate little clouds that begged to be blown apart. We would close our eyes, make a wish, take a breath, and blow. My wish usually involved flying away with the seeds, floating high above the trees. Much of my life has, in fact, been filled with traveling and experiencing other 'worlds'--cultures and languages and people.

Just idea of time travel, alternative universes (and 'The Matrix') grab my attention and make me wonder: Is what we see all there is? Physicists have long suspected that there are more than four space-time dimensions. Some believe there are at least ten dimensions. Others say eleven, even twelve are possible. When you start talking about 'string theory' and 'supergravity', it gets way over my head.

But there is something deep in the heart of man that says there is more to life than what we are able to experience from our five senses. Why else would we crave to know about what we cannot see? Why would we peer into the outer realms of the universe to try to understand it, know it, even manipulate it?

Wait. It's almost as if Someone out there is trying to contact us, not the other way around. Could it be that Someone outside of time (and all the other 11 or 12+ dimensions) desires to contact the human race? In order to do that, would He would have to travel to our world, learn our customs, speak our language, dress like us, and generally not scare us to death with what He knows that we don't know?

Or would He come to earth as a baby, small and helpless, as fragile and innocuous as a dandelion? Would He grow up to heal the sick, preach the good news to the poor, cast out demons, speak the truth in love--even die for us, in order to get our attention?

Would He? Is it possible that the Alternate Universe has bent space and time and has already been here?

Close your eyes, take a breath, and imagine that.

"LORD, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them? They are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow." Psalm 144: 3-4

"Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." Jeremiah 33:3