The sun, the moon, and what holds them in the sky.

When I was a kid my dad liked to make me believe things that weren’t true, but never tell me the real truth. This is probably a common thing among parents. I get it. I love when It becomes clear a kids doesn’t fully understand what they are talking about. So innocent, so funny, and they become so creative in trying to justify their understandings. It is wonderful.

For me this led into a pretty embarrassing understanding of how the universe worked… It wasn’t until I was in jr. high that I realized that the Sun and the Moon were not in fact held up by the North and South Poles… Orbiting, gravity, stars, space… It became clear that I had some work to do. Some critical thinking to engage in. Some beliefs to back track on. Some conversations with my dad to be had…

If we are honest it would seem as most of our beliefs are created this way. Someone told us. We experienced or saw something and then those beliefs just slipped into our understanding of how things were. For the vast majority of things this isn’t inherently bad. My belief about the North Pole was just a little embarrassing, and I eventually discovered I was wrong and my beliefs shifted. I wonder if maybe this is the way beliefs are supposed to work.

Just like in my Jr. High school, when I was learning about the earth orbiting the sun and moon orbiting…