Somehow, with the news horrible from Japan to the Middle East, the idea that there’s going to be a “super-moon” this weekend — a huge full moon, with that sunlit pile of rock closer to the earth than it’s been in 18 years — makes me happy.

Some people are apparently seeing all kinds of weird auguries in thus lunar perigee.  Not me.  I think of it more as a blessing, a kind of consolation.

I  imagine it slowly appearing over the rim of the mountains, as though some gigantic hand were inflating an impossibly outsize balloon.  It’ll be deep golden orange, the color of California poppies, the color of spring. Then as it reaches its full size, it’ll lift off into the sky, a giant floating ball of gold.  And then slowly — but so fast, too fast — it’ll rise higher and become smaller, paler, whiter, until there it goes, just another full moon, and you walk back inside feeling as though you’ve just been graced with magic, in touch again with a sense of wonder.

This time I can only imagine it.  The forecast here is for rain.  But if the sky is clear where you are at moonrise, don’t hesitate:  go outside with someone close to you and watch, and be grateful.

I never meant for this to happen.  I’m a psychologist by training, a Middle East reporter by experience, an agnostic fascinated by the vast and often terrifying arena in which politics and religion intersect.   And as a result, an accidental theologist.

Perhaps the thirteen years I lived and worked in Jerusalem have a lot to do with it — a city where politics and religion are at their most incendiary.  Or my childhood as the only Jew in a Catholic convent school, which somehow left me with a deep sense of mystery but no affinity for organized religion.    Or the fact that I’ve spent the past ten years writing on the roots of conflict in the history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

What this means is that my life, like my head, is full of anomalies, a fact that both bemuses and intrigues me.  It makes things interesting.  Whether as agnostic, as psychologist, or as writer, I’m always asking questions — not to find “answers,” but to see where the questions lead.  Dead ends sometimes?  That’s fine.  New directions?  Interesting.  Great insights?  Over-ambitious.  A glimpse here and there?  Perfect.

So you’ll find none of the comfort of received opinion here. No claim to truth, let alone Truth (that capital T always makes me nervous).  None of that astounding confidence (aka hubris) that cloaks ignorance and prejudice.  The aim is to question, to explore, to keep my mind — and yours — open, raise some sparks, and see what happens.

Looking forward to the conversation — Lesley