When we are aware of things around us, even the routines can become times to meet God. Psalm 98 calls us to “sing to the Lord a new song…Let the sea roar, and all the fills it; the world and all who dwell in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord.” (vs. 1, 7-8) All creation celebrates God who is everywhere. It can be easy to be conscious of God when we are in some grand Cathedral, and forget once we step outside that God is there, too.
As we become more aware of God around us we discover, with Barbara Brown Taylor, “God can come to me by a still pool on the big island of Hawaii as well as at the altar of Washington National Cathedral. The House of God stretches from one corner of the universe to the other.” She says that there are altars everywhere. Taylor points out that Jacob encountered God at Bethel when he dreamed of the stairway to heaven. Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!’ And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." (Genesis 28:16-17). His realization led him to set up an altar to commemorate the encounter. “Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars,” claims Taylor.
Madeline L’Engle suggests that “Our way of looking at the place of the earth in the heavens changed irrevocable when the first astronauts went to the moon.” We can no longer look for God ‘out there’ like the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin who claimed there was no God because he couldn’t see Him while in outer space. That makes it even more important for us to see the altars around us.
Have you ever been in a place that was, for you, an altar—a holy place? Was it while reading a book, walking on a beach, sitting at your desk, hearing a piece of music? Barbara Brown Taylor says, “I can [try to] talk myself out of living in the House of God. Or I can set up a little altar, in the world, or in my heart. I can stop what I am doing long enough to see where I am…and how awesome this place is.” On a recent trip to Colorado, these mountain blue jays were a blessing to me, a reminder of the One who cares for the birds and who loves me.
Celtic spirituality is heavy with the understanding that God is in all things and everything is replete with God (and therefore an altar). Prayers for fire lighting and bread kneading and all other daily tasks abound. As Mechtild of Magdeburg wrote, “all things in God and God in all things.” It is all encapsulated in St. Patrick’s Breastplate, which says in part:
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
This week, I plan to look for the gateways to heaven, the altars in our midst. They are there, you and I just need to be aware. Will you join me in looking for bushes that burn, ladders to heaven, and other assurances that God is present?
Next week, come back to see how we can find God in the routine encounters with each other.
* Quotations from Walking on Water, L’Engle and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, unless otherwise noted.
