Discovering the Divine in the Ordinary Lanscape of Life
A tide of gratitude envelopes me, every cell immersed in its presence.
A wave of acceptance washes over all that has become of me, and all that will be.
It feels like a glad dissolving, a disappearing into the Christ mystery.
As waves of fear recede, the self-less sand is carved up into new channels of grace.
And my loved ones, who keep my heart open and vulnerable, I release them into this wild sea of hope, as I stand on the shore of serenity.
Giving thanks unlocks the gate we have closed to God’s presence. It is like a secret password that is so simple and obvious we overlooked it.
The principle is that gratitude opens into presence. So as we lift our hearts in gratitude we become more aware of God’s presence and we enter his realm.
Gratitute is like putting on glasses to see through the material and the circumstantial into the eternal. To see past the gift into the presense of the giver.
And then all things become like glass, transparent and open, and we recognize that we are home.
When a sacred space opens amidst the chaos and stress of life it is often unexpected and triggered by something as simple as a deep breath, a fresh scent, or a babies smile.
It has the power to launch a wave of gratitude that moves into our inner city like a liberating force clearing the streets of protestors and imposters.
It declares a temporary cease fire in the bombardment of doing and achieving, and invites us to sit on the park bench of acceptance in the shade of our being.
God “is the one whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” St. Bonaventure
Since, by virtue of my consent, I shall have become a living particle of the Body of Christ, all that affects me must in the end help on the growth of the total Christ. Christ will flood into and over me, me and my cosmos.
. . . May my acceptance be ever more complete, more comprehensive, more intense!
May my being, in its self-offering to you, become ever more open and more transparent to your influence!
And may I thus feel your activity coming ever closer, your presence growing ever more intense, everywhere around me.
Suffering is like a door, and the hinge of that door is our intension. Our intension emerges from a deep place of interior freedom. We can either close the door, and wall ourselves off, creating a space of bitterness and self isolation, or we can open the door by making ourselves an offering, and in so doing we step into the wide open space of surrender, acceptance and grace.
Without this door of suffering, it becomes difficult to find the open and unitive space, and we get confined and compressed into our egoic or false self. The suffering that seems to limit us and break us down is that which paradoxically expands our capacity and connectivity. It is the door of powerlessness that opens out onto a vast terrace of grace.
Jesus stands at the door and knocks, and as we open and enter into his life, which is really our pascal mystery, it opens out to eternal life. We come to realize that we are stronger than death, and suffering need not be a tragedy. Yes, for a time we may have to squeeze through a difficult and narrow passage, but along the way, my pain has become His pain, and our pain. His glory is my glory. His joy, my joy, and our joy.
The manna that God provided for the Israelites in the dessert is described as flakes like hoarfrost or dew upon the ground. It was not recognizable as bread, and they did not see it falling from heaven, it just appeared in the morning as naturally as the dew.
Here we have a mysterious interplay between nature and grace. The morning dew tastes like sweet bread, and the evening birds are real flesh. Strangely natural and supernatural.
The Eucharist presents a similar mystery. It is just a wafer of bread in a liturgical service, a shared meal, and yet through the eyes of faith it becomes Christ, our passover, and real spiritual food for the journey.
Does the Eucharistic (Thanksgiving) presence of Christ appear everywhere that love is shared? Does it fall as naturally as the morning dew, for all who are journeying within the pascal mystery of life?
It seems as if the spirit by its very nature is drawn into matter. God descending into our humanity in Jesus, and then even further down to become bread to eat. A divine mist condensing on the ground of our lives like the morning dew.
Our own lives are also to become a kind of Eucharist, a bread for others, and a descent into nature. As we are led into this vulnerable land we learn its language of trust and self emptying, and then manna appears all around us.
Ever notice how a dog can sit for hours on a porch just watching the world go by. There are no existential puzzles to solve, or complex identity narratives to sort out, nothing to prove, and no other place to be. That is a dog that is well fed and belong. The master lives inside. Its that simple.
What about us humans?
I wish it were that simple, but we have self-isolating egos, self-constructed identities, and disordered loves to navigate. What happened to just food and belonging?
What if we took more time each day to just sit on the porch of our lives, accepting our humanity, our position and place in the world, and then began to realize how deeply we already do belong and are loved.
Where is that place where we can hear God say: “I am pleased to dwell with you”?
The spiritual life is a practice in being. But when we are restless, we are tempted to flee from our being into only doing and consuming. But such a response is only to throw more logs on the fire of this existential restlessness.
So how do we stay grounded, centered, and at peace? How do we stay connected to God’s presence within us?
It seems to me that we have to embrace the “little deaths” that come to us and not avoid them or narcotize ourselves from them. We need to drink the cup of our real life. To be present to ourself and not escape the scene.
Three beautiful pathways into our own presence and Gods presence are silence, solitude, and stillness. These are gifts that can “wake us up” to the realization that the infinite, burning consumer within us is actually a longing for God in us. The longing is for presence, for a sense of being.
Be careful what you consume, what you use to try and fill your emptiness. begin to see your unrest as a sign or invitation from God to return to silence, stillness, and solitude. And then start to intentionally build these practices into your day.
I grew up fishing with my dad and I remember the exhilaration of the catch, the soul quickening tingle when the line goes taught and the pole bends, absorbing the life force of the deep, and traveling up into my hands and body.
In the thrill of the “catch” there is a connection and a flow of energy that is ecstasy. I can only liken it to wires touching to form a momentary electric circuit, a oneness.
For the sporting fish there is also the ritual of “release”. The momentary grasping of slippery flesh to free it of hook and barb, and the encounter with that mystery of life starring back with translucent eyes and firm jaw. And then the lifting up in thanks and the lowering down in respect to set free the life.
Through out our lives we face the spiritual challenge of catch and release. Our desires, like a burning fire, imaging God within us, seek to hold, to have, to love and embrace all things. But in our frailty and mortality there is also the temptation to grasp with intent to keep and to cling, but this will only leave us impoverished, holding idols, ideologies, and dead things.
Gods gifts are as endless as our desires, so keep releasing them back into the sea of love from which they came.