The Space Between Stars • Passion for Grace

Three
Passion for Grace
OCTOBER 1955

“WHERE WOULD I BE IF I HAD NEVER BEEN BORN?” little eight-yearold
Stevie asked himself aloud. He was alone in his bedroom one
hot August afternoon. With school out, those “lazy, hazy . . . days
of summer . . .,” that Nat King Cole crooned about, were perfect
for daydreaming. Of course, daydreams usually took a backseat to
catching frogs and tadpoles in the pond up the street or lazily
watching dragonflies hover over the reeds and cattails. Immediately
after his question, he had a vision of the star-filled night sky.
The profundity of his vision of the starry heavens was not completely
appreciated by him as a child. He was, however, having a
dim recollection of how all embodied souls have a heavenly origin.
Flashing ahead four decades, Stephen considered how he had been
introduced to the Mayan shamans who claimed that the Mayan
people were descended from beings from the stars of the Pleiades.
They also told him that the ancient Egyptians were descended from
star beings who came from the stars found in the constellation of
Orion. Just maybe, he thought, there was more to his childhood vision
of the stars than he had ever imagined. . . .

When he was ten years old, he saw the opening scene of the film
classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. He felt a tingling flutter up his spine
when the stars, representing angels, were talking about the film’s
hero George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart). . . . he wondered, Maybe every
child has a star appear at his or her birth, representing the radiant star
of his or her divine sidereal self. It is just not so obvious as it was with
the birth of Jesus.

After envisioning the stars in answer to his question about where
he would be if he had never been born, Stevie had the thought, I
very easily might never have been born so I’m lucky to be here. . . .
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