God and Grandmother’s Needle

When I was growing up in India, prayer was an integral part of our day. As we got up in the morning and saw the first rays of sunshine, we thanked God. As we took a shower, before breakfast, and as we got ready to go to school, we prayed. As we ate lunch, we prayed. When we turned the lights on in the evening, we prayed. 

I was told that God could see everything. God could hear everything. God knew everything. God was everywhere, including in the trees, stones, bugs, and animals. 

When I was six years old, I started questioning things. And so, at a family reunion, one evening I asked my grandmother, “What is this thing called ‘God’?”

My grandmother measured perhaps five feet—and I don’t mean just in height, but also in width. She was round, almost like a ball. When we kids gave her a hug, we would sink into her bosom. 

The family story was that Grandma had education only through the 3rd grade. However, behind her back, some family members smirked at that idea, because she could not even write her own name. But she was a great storyteller. 

And so it was that all of us cousins were tucked in under her quilt one evening during that family vacation, listening to her stories. That is when I posed the question about God.

In answering my question, she started by asking all of us to imagine a space in which we could see nothing but clean air. She explained that the air was actually filled with particles that were invisible to the eye. If we were able to magnify one of those invisible particles many times, we would see that it was shaped like an egg. And, there would be nothing visible inside that egg, but it would also be filled with specks so small that they were invisible to our eyes. If we were able to magnify one little speck, we would find that it was also shaped like an egg with nothing visible inside it, but we could magnify one little speck. 

She described this same process several times, until we could predict the next step—which we did out loud, all in a chorus. We thought it would never end, but she claimed she said it only seven times. Finally, in the seventh egg-within-an-egg, she said that the little speck was our entire known universe. 

One of the cousins asked if it would include our house. “Yes,” she responded. Would it include the mountains? “Yes,” she said. Would it include her house, which was in another city? “Yes.” On and on we went, until we established that it included our parents, the moon, the sun, all the stars in the sky, and everything our little minds could fathom. 

“But, what about God?” I asked, getting back to the starting point of the story. 

“Oh, all those invisible particles contained universes,” she told us. “But God is beyond all of them.”

“Ah! If God is that far away,” I reasoned, “then God cannot possibly see what I do or hear what I say!” My cousins all groaned. However, I was somewhat relieved that I would not have to worry about God anymore. 

Grandma didn’t say anything.

The next evening, we were tucked in with her again for more stories. Suddenly I felt a small, sharp pain, and I jumped out from under the quilt.

“What happened?” Grandma asked.

“A bug bit me!” I said.

“No, no, no, sit down,” she said. “It wasn’t a bug.”

When I was tucked in again, she brought her hand out from under the quilt. It was holding a needle. She explained that she had gently poked it in my left arm.

“Why would you do that?” I asked angrily.

“See what happened? I poked a little needle in just one tiny point on your arm, and your whole body reacted.” she said. “In the same way, even the smallest little thing that we do or say affects the whole universe.”

That experience with my Grandma became a vivid memory and the foundation of my concept of God.