And Live Rejoicing: Chapters from a Charmed Life, Personal Encounters with Spiritual Mavericks, Remarkable seekers, and the World's Great Religious Leaders
by Huston Smith with Phil Cousineau
New World Library, Novato, California
© 2012 248 pp.
Given my age, I may be the only person still living who witnessed the moon being saved.
My parents were missionaries, and I grew up in a Chinese town, Dzang Zok, about seventy miles from Shanghai. One night, when I was about ten years old, we heard an alert that the moon was in danger, a deafening din that woke us in the middle of the night. We knew from this noise that the dragon--the Chinese symbol of terror, awe, and might--was swallowing the moon and had to be scared away. So the townsfolk seized whatever noisemakers they could lay their hands on, such as pots and pans, to bang with large wooden spoons, and put them to frantic use. The strategy of noisemaking always prevailed. When the eclipse was total, the dragon eventually disgorged its prey, and the moon was safely back in the sky.
When I think about that exciting night, I ponder the fact that there we were, an American family surrounded by our Chinese neighbors, alike in our human capacities but worlds apart in our outlooks.
Today, more than eight decades later, I muse on that wondrous opportunity to experience two such radically distinct worlds. One world populated with fire-breathing dragons, and the other features the Hubble telescope and all the other stunning discoveries of modern astronomy. Let me tell you more about growing up in China. (pp. 3-4)
