Finding Holy Ground: Seeing

Today we start a new series about “Finding Holy Ground”. I recently re-read the Barbara Brown Taylor book An Altar in the World. It was a good reminder that God is found in all things and places. I’ll be referring to her and to others in this series that will take us to Advent. Our journey to finding Holy Ground starts with reflecting on how God is found very close to us-in our senses. I invite you to come along and take time to find Holy Ground.

In the September 4 d365.com meditation, Ben Brown noted, “Moses had packed a bag for watching his father-in-law’s flock, but he was unprepared to encounter God through a burning bush. Life is dynamic, and sometimes we’ll encounter God in surprising places” He asks, “will we recognize the holy ground and take off our sandals?” As Taylor notes, when we become aware of all the Holy Ground, we have to be prepared to be surprised.

I invite you to encounter the Holy Ground through our senses. Today we start with sight, which many of us take for granted. Even if, like me, you wear glasses, you probably can see if you are reading this blog. Admittedly I wouldn’t be able to read it without my glasses, but thanks to modern medicine, the blurriness of astigmatism is correctable so that I can indeed see to read.

In the Gospels, Jesus heals more than one person of blindness. One instance is found in Mark 8:23-25. We hear, “So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then He spit on the man’s eyes and placed His hands on him. “Can you see anything?” He asked. The man looked up and said, “I can see the people, but they look like trees walking around.” Once again Jesus placed His hands on the man’s eyes, and when he opened them his sight was restored, and he could see everything clearly”

Unlike many healings, this time the healing seems to be only partial at first. The man says, “I see the people, but they look like trees”. Certainly, that’s rather what happens to me when I’m not wearing my glasses. I can see shapes, but they are pretty indistinct.

I think that happens more often than we realize, because we don’t pay attention to what we are seeing. We are only seeing shapes not the reality of the people and things around us. We are not seeing God, and Holy Ground, in what we are looking at.

A few months ago, I came across an exercise for seeing more clearly. The author suggested taking a leaf or something else and really studying it for several minutes. Look at the veins and cells of the leaf, marvel at the delicacy of the feather, contemplate the tree branch until you are amazed at the complexity of the parts. Barbara Brown Taylor suggests doing something similar with your own hand. Study your veins, look at the lines or spots or scars. Think about all the places that hand has been and all it has done in your life.

I would encourage you to take time, as much as you need, but more than just a couple of minutes, to do one of these things. Find something in nature, or your own hand, and let yourself look deeply into it. Let God show you the Holy Ground in the object.

Then, take it a step further, the next time you are driving or walking or scanning through Facebook, take time to really see what is going on. Look at the faces you pass or the ones on the posts. Are they stressed, or happy, or afraid? See with the eyes of your heart and try to get past the odd, blurry ‘tree’ shapes that are safe, but which don’t tell us much. Look into the heart and really see the Holy Ground there.

The same September 4 d365.com post had this prayer to help us focus, “God of surprises, help me to notice you in the midst of my mundane activities. Prepare me for the holy ground I’ll encounter today. Amen”

Lord's Prayer: For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, the Glory

Since the beginning of June, we’ve been ‘unpacking’ each line of the Lord’s Prayer. We have explored heaven (June 18) and asked for our daily bread (July 16). We’ve looked at how to ‘hallow’ God’s name (June 25) and offered ourselves to bring God’s will to earth (July 9). We’ve seen that God’s Kingdom (July 2) comes partly through our ability to forgive and receive forgiveness (July 23, 30). The past couple of weeks have been devoted to praying for protection from temptation and evil.

Today we consider the final phrase of the prayer “For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever”. It is a summary of all the rest of the lines of the Lord’s Prayer. As some commentators note, it is a doxology of praise. In this last section, we return to praising God, as at the start. We acknowledge that God alone has the Power and Glory. Only God can accomplish all that we have asked. It is interesting to note that in the Luke version of the prayer (Luke 11:2-4) this phrase is absent. In some translations of the Matthew citation (Matthew 6:9-13) it is also absent with the note that this doxology was added early on by the church. Likely the early church fathers thought that the prayer should have some nice and tidy way to end.

Enter the Presence: This ending Doxology is a good reminder that to God do belong the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. Saint Irenaeus, a second century bishop, wrote: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

We are reminded in the Old Testament that “the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.” (Exodus 24:17) The New Testament encourages us to participate in that glory. In the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul says “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31) The Philippians are urged to have “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:11) Our every action is to be a doxology of its own-a hymn of praise in action to God.

Of course, as Paul tells the Roman community “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). Still, the Colossians are encouraged because we are those “to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) Because Christ is in each of us, we can in fact be human beings, fully alive.

Stand In Awe: How awesome to think that we are, as Saint Irenaeus said, “the glory of God”, and we are to live and confess God in that Glory. Take a moment to think about what it means to have the glory of God in you. Look around you, sit in your garden and listen, smell, hear, see all around the glory of God in birds, grass, flowers, sky, sound. Everything proclaims the glory of God, if we pause to see it.

Barbara Brown Taylor talks about this in her book An Altar in the World. She notes, “the last place most people look [for God] is right under their feet, in the everyday activities, accidents, and encounters of their lives.” She suggests letting yourself get lost and get out of the daily routines of the same routes. When you do, you “agree to become aware of each step you take, tuning all of your senses to exactly where you are and exactly what you are doing.”

Involve your Heart: “Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory” says the Lord’s Prayer doxology. Take some time to be really aware of God all around you. Get off the normal, beaten path, and try a new route, or a new prayer routine, or a new version of the Bible.

Write the word ‘Glory’ or ‘Power’ or ‘Kingdom’ in the center of a paper. Add words or images that come to mind when you think of that word.

Color the tree of life image from Pinterest in this blog, or find your own image, and think about what being the Glory of God means to you.

This week focus on “Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever”. Next week, we will take a quick look at ‘Amen’.

Transformation-Light to the Nations

For the past 6 weeks, we’ve been on a journey, looking at transformation. We’ve traveled with Barbara Brown Taylor* and her book Gospel Medicine and with Edward Hays’ St. George and the Dragon and the Quest for the Holy Grail.* Along the way we’ve found some surprises-or at least I did. Transformation can only happen when we acknowledge we are broken and scarred. Transformation comes at a cost and often requires wrestling with God who sometimes seems to be absent. Messengers come to offer guidance and ultimately we are faced with judgment-the turning around of our lives. Slowly, eventually we start to understand that the scars are part of who we are and that it is in embracing them that we can become whole and holy people of God.

Responding to God’s call to Transformation turns our ‘world upside down.’ The things we thought important, somehow become less important. Men and women in the Bible learned this over and over again. Abram in Genesis becomes Abraham (father of many nations), but not in the way he anticipated. Naomi (Book of Ruth) thinks her life is over because her husband and sons are dead. Instead, God gives her a new family through the devotion of her daughter-in-law Ruth. Simon in the New Testament is given the new name of Petros (Peter the rock) by Jesus, but it is many years before he grasps what that means in terms of leading the fledgling church. Anyone you look at in the Bible and God’s servants today, will have similar stories of how the life they had planned did not turn out the way they expected. Instead it ended up much better, even though it was a walk through fire.

Taylor closes her book with a look at Mary and Joseph, two people whose ‘yes’ to God changed the world. She says that we can decide to say no when God visits you. “You smooth your hair and go back to…whatever it is that is most familiar to you and you pretend that nothing has happened. If you life begins to change anyway, you have several options…[ignore it…become angry…bitter]…or you can decide to say yes…to take part in a plan you did not choose, doing things you do not know how to do for reasons you do not entirely understand. You can take part in a thrilling and dangerous scheme with no script and no guarantees…Deciding to say yes does not mean that you are not afraid…it just means that you are not willing to let your fear stop you.”

Accepting the call of God to be transformed and carry the light of God into the world, however, is not something you do in your own strength. Too often we (and I speak for myself here) think that it’s all up to us to be “extraordinary: extra thoughtful, extra friendly, extra involved…you burn your candle at both ends…You begin to wonder whether it is God you are serving or only your own ego.” (Taylor) 

Taylor points to Isaiah 49 as our reference when we feel burned out.

"Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ But I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.’

And now the LORD says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the LORD, and my God has become my strength—he says, ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’"(Isaiah 49:1-9)

The Servant in Isaiah knows God has called him, but he claims “I have labored in vain.” However God answers him by assuring the Servant that he will be “a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Jesus uses the same metaphor of being light in Matthew 5:14-16: "‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Early in Edward Hay’s book, the dragon gives George “a hermitage mirror.” The Dragon says, “Look into it and be alone; be quiet and you will see the shadow side of yourself which is usually invisible. You will see that what you consciously deny is there.” At the end of the book, George is ready to leave his family to go with Igor, the dragon, on the ultimate quest. Before they leave, Igor again hands the mirror to George.

“‘You don’t want to forget this.’ I took the hermitage mirror in my hand remembering my fears when I first began to see my own darkness, the dark side hidden by my blindness. As I looked into it now, I saw the garbage-the sin, the weakness, the failings that were once unbearable. I could look into the mirror and say truthfully, ‘I love you.’ And this morning I could see that I also bore the darkness and weakness of vast multitudes, of those past and those to come. And as I look at all that darkness, I could say with complete conviction, ‘I love you.’

Igor smiled as he watched and said, ‘Turn it over, George, and look in the other side.’ Slowly I turned the mirror. There on the other side was the brilliance of ten thousand sunrises-the image blinded me with its intense beauty. And out of the center of the explosion of sunburst, a golden chalice appeared-the Holy Grail!
My whole being was saturated with light, and my heart throbbed like thunder as I felt my body expanding beyond the furthest reaches of the cosmos. ‘Yes, George,’ said a voice that came from everywhere. “Thou art that.” You, George are the Holy Grail!’”


If we are as Hays implies, the Holy Grail-the container that holds the Holy, then the world is indeed upside down. Taylor says, “God’s ‘yes’ depends on our own…God’s birth requires human partners-a Mary, a Joseph, a you, and a me-willing to believe the impossible, willing to claim the scandal…accepting the whole sticky mess and rocking it in our arms…surveying a world that seems to have run amuck and proclaiming over and over again to anyone who will hear that God is still with us, that God is still being born in the mess and through it, within and among those who will still believe what angels tell them…”

Taylor states, “it is too light a thing, you servants of God, that you should spend your strength doing your duty when what you have been called to do is to ignite, enflame, combust, burn, shine with the glory of the God who has chosen you, and given you to the world, bright lights to the end of the earth.”

Are we spending too much time doing what we think is our duty and not enough time being the Holy Grail that George saw in that hermitage mirror? Is your light under a bushel or on the lampstand to light the room around you?

*quotes from Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor and St. George and the Dragon and the Quest for the Holy Grail by Edward Hays.

Transformation from Messengers

Barbara Brown Taylor* suggests that “If God is silent, it may be because we are not speaking God’s language yet…God has taught us how to break the silence and has even given us the words. “Here I am.” They are the words we long to hear, but they are also the words God longs for us to speak—to stand before a sister, a brother, and say, “Here I am.”

How do we learn the language of God? From the beginning, God has sent messengers. Men like Jonah and Isaiah and Job and John the Baptist all point the way to God. Sometimes the messengers really are straight from heaven. Abraham’s visitors (as seen in this art by Lieferin), the ladder to heaven that Jacob sees, the messenger who comes to Samson’s mother are some, and of course Gabriel’s visit to Mary is an obvious angel messenger.

Very often the people in the Bible don’t like what the messengers have to say. In fact, Jesus sums up the response of most of us in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matthew 21:33-41, Mark 12:1-12, or Luke 20:9-19). Taylor sums up the message of this story by saying, “We are God’s sharecroppers…We are expected to represent God’s interests, being as generous with each other as God is with us. We are not owners. We were never meant to be…[however] the harvest will take your breath away.”

Messengers from God very often demand change or warn that it is coming. We however, long for an easier way. We ask “for protection, for prosperity, for a God who will operate within the domestic boundaries we have set for ourselves, without doing anything to frighten us unnecessarily. We want to be chosen. We want to be saved, only gently, please, by gradual degrees, so that we can see where we are going…No one in his or her right mind asks to be attacked, frightened, wounded. And yet that is how it comes sometimes, the presence and blessing of God…the answer to all our prayers.” (Taylor)

She goes on to say, “In this dance, it is not God’s job to keep bad things from happening…God’s job is to stay present in them and to keep on being God…Sometimes the voice seems to come straight from heaven and sometimes it comes through the voices of strangers and friends.” Sometimes it comes in other ways, too.

Last week I watched the Jim Henson movie Dark Crystal. It was not at all what I expected from Jim Henson (no Muppets), but it was a moving metaphor for the need to embrace the scars or ‘dark side’ of our lives. According to the story, once there was one race on Thra, but when the Crystal was damaged, two races emerged. The Skeksis, dark and evil, are in control of the castle and the Crystal. Far away the Mystics, peaceful and gentle, live. The leader of the Mystics raises a Gefling, last of a race destroyed by the Skeksis. There is a prophecy that a Gefling will restore the Crystal and end the reign of the Skeksis. As the story moves toward its climax, Jen, the Gefling discovers that there is one other Gefling. Together they bring the Crystal shard to the castle. The Mystics are also moving toward the castle. We come to realize that the two races are really one people. When Jen returns the shard to the Crystal, it is transformed from a dark to bright crystal and the Mystics and Skeksis reunite as beings of light.

To me, the movie was a metaphor for embracing the parts of ourselves that we often try to hide or deny. Only when we accept our “scars”, as the Dragon does, can they glow and give us strength and confidence.

In St. George and the Dragon*, George is given books by the Dragon who says “Read between the lines and you will be surprised at what you find.” Then as always, the Dragon has a story about the ways God is revealed to us.

“[God is meeting with the Review Board committee of angels and archangels about creation.] ‘I feel,’ said God, ‘that it is time for me to speak more directly to my children on earth. Until now I have spoken to them by means of a flood, fire, rainbows and, of course, a quiet whisper in the heart of certain chosen ones. But I feel that they need to hear more directly from me.’ … [The angels ask why a new method is needed and great discussion arises. Until...] “The static stillness around the conference table was broken by the voice of one angel. ‘My Lord God, why not come to earth in the form of writing?’…‘Marvelous idea,’ shouted God, ‘marvelous…I shall come as word.!’… ‘But Lord God,’ said the bass-voiced angel, ‘which alphabet will you be?...You cannot discriminate and still be God.’ [God considers this and then God makes an announcement.] ‘I have decided-upon careful consideration of your suggestions and objections-I have decided to come into the world as ink!...Then I can reside in the letters of all alphabets…the possibilities are unlimited.’…God did indeed come into the world as ink. And the people of earth recognized the Divine Presence in the Hebrew letters of the Torah, in the Sanskrit…the Chinese characters…the Arabic letters…”

God’s messengers are everywhere. Messengers can be the people we meet, the books we read, the movies we watch, or they can be the scars we are working on transforming through these Easter season mediations. What messengers have you heard recently?

Next week, our journey of transformation comes up to the reality of ‘judgment’. See you then. The parable of the Tenants reminds us. “When the owner of the vineyard comes…‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’” Are we good sharecroppers or greedy wretches?
*quotes from Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor and St. George and the Dragon and the Quest for the Holy Grail by Edward Hays.

Transformation when God seems Absent

Transformation is about acknowledging our scars and wrestling with God in order to draw near to God’s grace and truth. So why does it sometimes feel like God is pulling away or absent? The road stretches out empty in front of you and there doesn't seem to be an oasis anywhere in sight.

It happened to the Chosen People-the Israelites-throughout the Bible. Sometimes they turned from God to serve idols of the tribes around them, sometimes it just seemed that God wasn’t there when they needed help. In Exodus, we learn “the people of Israel groaned under their bondage and cried out for help.” (Exodus 2:23) God seemed far away and the people thought that they were forgotten. After all, for 400 years Pharaoh “made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field.” (Exodus 1:14) We know that they were not really forgotten, because we know the rest of the story-we know how God "brought them us out of Egypt with a mighty hand." (Deuteronony 26:8)

In Isaiah God says, “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you.” (Isaiah 54:7) The disciples felt abandoned after the Crucifixion, but Jesus comes and gathers them back with reassurance. While they still doubt and do not understand what has happened, He meets them where they are. Jesus comes to them in locked rooms, on the road to Emmaus, and on the seashore where he has fixed them breakfast. In each case, Jesus reassures the men and women that he will be with them.

Taylor* uses the analogy of a parent who leaves the children with an older sibling as babysitter. We (as Christians) are like that responsible sibling. We may feel like we’ve been orphaned because we cannot see or hear God. However, Jesus promises, “I will not leave you desolate…We will come and make our home with you [us].” (John 14:23) Taylor says this “is very good news for babysitters…there is someone else at home, in us and in those for whom we care, which means we do not have to be God-sized for them. We can be human-sized instead, with room within us for God to dwell and heal all our hearts from the inside out.” Instead of having to be in charge, we can be children together and hold each other's hands.

Edward Hays’ Dragon* tells George “The desert is not always a pleasant place. Our littleness and our inabilities usually come to the surface when we are left alone.” Then the Dragon tells a story that can point the way to finding God when it feels like there is only silence or emptiness.

“This is a story about the Our Father…Secure and comfortable, the Our Father was at peace with his spiritual life…then…a sense of hollowness and a lack of meaning became a shadow that followed him each time he went to pray…he read articles and attended conferences…sought out an Indian guru…his prayer life remained as barren as the Sahara. So in frustration, like so many others, he completely abandoned praying and became involved in social reform. [Even after living for a year in the Rocky Mountains as a hermit he was aware that his problem was still with him. He finds an old man in a cabin on his way down the mountain and shares his story of frustration with the old man, who told him] “You are a special and sacred word of God made flesh. To pronounce your own unique word is to pray the most beautiful and holiest of prayers…God doesn’t create things; God only creates prayers…To learn how to pray is to learn to pronounce your own sacred word-to speak yourself!...You must see yourself as you are. Everything about the original you is perfect. God does not have bad ideas…Speak your own word clearly and with dignity. That is what it means to submit to the will of God…when you are true to your special word, what Jesus said will be true in your life-he and the Father will come and make their dwelling place with you, always!”


Being transformed is about acknowledging that we have scars that need to glow, about wrestling with God to find the Truth that God speaks in and through us. Transformation is also about trusting that God is present even when it feels like God is absent. The disciples didn’t recognize Jesus immediately after his Resurrection. Sometimes we don’t realize God is with us, esp. in the dark and painful times of life. God met the Israelites in their bondage in Egypt, Jesus met the disciples in their despair and lonliness, God will meet us when we think that there is no where to go.

Taylor notes that “when we too are marooned on the sea in the middle of night, afraid that we have come to the end of something without any idea how to begin again…it is probably a good idea to pay attention to [strangers] since Jesus has a whole closet full of disguises…How does any of us know [‘it is the Lord’]?...by watching…by listening…by living in great expectation and refusing to believe that our nets will stay empty…for those with ears to hear, there is a voice that can turn all our dead ends into new beginnings.”
Where are you in being transformed by God? Hurting from your scars? Wrestling with God? Wondering where God is? Listen and you may just hear a messenger offering hope. See you next week when we’ll explore some of the messengers God uses.

Transformation of Grace

Transformation begins with knowing that change is needed. We need to change our relationship with God in order to find real freedom. We cannot become whole and free on our own. In order to be transformed into new creations, we need Grace. That is something God loves to give away. From the beginning, God says “I will be your God and you shall be my people.”

Change often requires wrestling with God. The Dragon* tells George a parable about an up-to-date Jacob. Jake and God wrestle about all sorts of modern issues. At the end, “Jake limped away wounded…but not the loser; for like his namesake of old, he had “contended and prevailed.” And God? Well, God did not limp away from the contest, but skipped happily away into the sunrise.” The Dragon then explains that those on a quest “need to wrestle with the important questions in your life...with the self you see…and you must wrestle with God as well…You can’t wrestle God or confront the way you live with what you believe without being wounded.” The result of the wrestling, however, is to “hear the voice within that calls you to truth.” (This image of Jacob Wrestling is by Delacroix)

Barbara Brown Taylor* calls us to remember the many times God has come close to humankind with promises of grace. Taylor says, “The rainbow is God’s pure gift to us, a colorful corrective for anyone who believes that all the grace in the Bible is in the New Testament. It is not. The sacred story is full of grace from the very beginning, although we have always had a perverse way of fighting it off. It is almost as if we cannot stand so much good news.”

The rainbow is only the first of many promises of Grace. Some Bible promises come with name changes, signifying a transformed life. Abram is promised descendents as the stars. His name is changed to Abraham (father of a multitude) to foreshadow his transformed life even before Isaac is born. Jacob wrestles with God. His name is changed from Jacob (Supplanter) to Israel (Strives with God).

Many Bible promises of grace follow God’s actions on behalf of the people. After the Children of Israel leave Egypt, God reminds them, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:4-5) The people do not have to do anything except keep the covenant and they (and you and I) are as the KJV says “a peculiar treasure unto [God] above all people.”

That’s a pretty big transformation-from slaves to God’s own treasure! And we are heirs of that promise. There is an even greater Grace found in the New Testament that we are recipients of. “’Here,’ God said with the gift of a son-the one thing God had to give that was more precious to him than himself. ‘You don’t have to come to me where I am anymore. I will come all the way to you where you are, through this beloved child’…It is God’s promise from before time and forever, spelled out this time in flesh and blood.” [Taylor]

In the New Covenant, we come full circle. Paul claims we have “this ministry by the mercy (grace) of God…for what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (I Corinthians 4:1-5) As God’s treasured possession through Grace, we are to become servants to one another.

The question before us is; are we willing to accept the grace offered and be transformed? Am I willing to wrestle with God to hear the truth, which may change me and make me into a servant?

*quotes from Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor and St. George and the Dragon and the Quest for the Holy Grail by Edward Hays.

Transformation-Broken & Scarred

Easter is the season that reminds us that all things are possible with God. For the next few weeks, until Pentecost, I’ll be meditating on Gospel Medicine by the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor and Edward Hays’ book, St. George and the Dragon and the Search for the Holy Grail. Can this Easter season be a time of transformation?
Transformation starts with acknowledging that change is needed. It involves being freed and healed from the scars of the past. In Gospel Medicine, the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor says that “the way you recognize Christ-and his followers-is not by their muscles but by their scars.” That is what makes Christianity truly Good News. We are “to follow [our] leader into the scariest, most dangerous places in the world armed with nothing but a first aid kit, because, like him, [we] are not fighters but physicians-wounded healers-whose credentials are [our] hurt places.”
At the beginning of St. George and the Dragon and the Search for the Holy Grail, George feels called to go on a quest. Almost immediately he meets is a dragon, who is old and scarred. “I noticed that the dragon’s body was covered with old wounds. Whenever the dragon breathed forth fire to light the path…the wounds glowed golden-red in the dark.”

George asks about this phenomenon. The dragon responds, “These old wounds are the source of my power and my insights…as we journey through life we have been injured…the possible list of the guilty is long. Each wound has the power to talk…with crooked voices because of the scars.”

In order to be the “wounded healers” that Taylor talks about, we have to accept that we are broken and scarred. In the post-Easter story of Jesus’ appearance on the road to Emmaus, He is known in the “breaking of the bread.” We are known as followers of the Risen Christ in the way we are “broken bread and poured out wine” to each other as Oswald Chambers says. (My Utmost for His Highest)

We have a choice, though. We don’t have to change and follow. The dragon tells George a story that illustrates our choice. “Once upon a time [in] a great prison” the men form an “Escape Committee” that is actually sanctioned by the warden. “The warden’s ingenious plan made life inside the prison better for everyone. He and he guards did not have to worry about anyone escaping; life and work inside the prison went on without trouble…the prisoners, once clouded by despair, now lived with a sense of hope and promise. Their meager, imprisoned lives now had meaning.”

The First Letter of Peter issues a call to transformation for all who seek to follow Christ. “Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good…, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (I Peter 2:1-4)

Peter warns that Christ is "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." (I Peter 2:8). Taylor notes, “The Gospel is not pablum. It is powerful stuff…The peace of God is worth anything it takes to get there…in Christ God has given us someone worth fighting about, and someone with enough clout to end our fighting, for his word is like fire, like a hammer that breaks rocks into pieces.”

Those who choose freedom and transformation are broken. They become what Peter calls “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (I Peter 2:9) Jesus offers freedom in the brokenness of life. We find wholeness when our scars glow.

The dragon asks George, “How many people do you know who settle for something less than freedom?” Are you settling for something less than real freedom?

*quotes from Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor and St. George and the Dragon and the Quest for the Holy Grail by Edward Hays.

God Routinely Blesses

Baruch Atah, Adonai Elohenu, Melech Ha-Olam…

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe…”

This ancient Jewish blessing is the start of many, if not most, Jewish prayers. The shofar calls the Jewish men to pause in their work and pray. According to Barbara Brown Taylor, an observant Jew will say “at least a hundred blessing prayers each day…upon waking up…before setting out…wearing new clothes…for pastries, fruit, vegetables, and wine.” This fall we’ve looked at various routines that can bring us closer to God. When we become aware of our routines, we wake up to their real purpose, which is to bring us blessing.

Even the interruptions and discomforts, even the pain and dis-ease of life are ways to find (and be found) by God. Perhaps we would do well to consider the practice of some of our faith predecessors who blessed even the seemingly bad things. Paul talks of being in chains as a way of preaching the Good News: "I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel...the whole praetorian guard and all the ret [know] that my imprisonment is for Christ...the brethren have been made confident in the Lord because of my imprisonment." (Philippian 1:12-14)

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God,” says Paul later. (Hebrews 10:31) We have to be open to the blessings that happen every day, all around us! L’Engle adds “We live under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can understand God…but the only way we can brush against the hem of the Lord…is to have the courage, the faith, to abandon control.” When we let go of control and are open to being blessed and to offering blessings for all things, we come closer to God than in the Cathedrals of the world. It is about how we live and are blessed by the One who imbues all things with Life.

A long time ago someone introduced me to the poem “Well” by G.A. Studdart-Kennedy. Studdart-Kennedy was a chaplain during WWI. He earned the nickname “Woodbine Willie” by giving Woodbine brand cigarettes to the wounded soldiers he ministered to. I've always been struck by Studdart-Kennedy's vision of meeting God after death and how that one word 'well?' sums up our response to God's blessings in all that happens, but esp. in our interactions with one another.

This poem is a soldier telling a dream. It’s a bit hard to read until you get into the rhythm of the Cockney accent. He dreams he dies and finds himself beside “a solemn kind o’ sea…A throng ‘o faces came and went, afore me on that shore.” The soldier sees everyone he has met and realizes “the dirty things I’d done to em, when I ‘and’t played the game.” Then “there before me someone stood, just lookin’ dahn at me…

And 'E said nowt, 'E just stood still, For I dunno 'ow long.

It seemed to me like years and years, But time out there's all wrong.

What was 'E like? You're askin' now. Can't word it anyway.

'E just were 'Im, that's all I knows. There's things as words can't say.

It seemed to me as though 'Is face, Were millions rolled in one.

It never changed yet always changed, Like the sea beneath the sun.

'Twere all men's face yet no man's face, And a face no man can see,

And it seemed to say in silent speech, 'Ye did 'em all to me.

'The dirty things ye did to them, 'The filth ye thought was fine,

'Ye did 'em all to me,' it said, 'For all their souls were mine.'

All eyes was in 'Is eyes, – all eyes, My wife's and a million more.

And once I thought as those two eyes Were the eyes of the London whore.

And they was sad, – My Gawd 'ow sad, With tears that seemed to shine,

And quivering bright wi' the speech o' light, They said, ''Er soul was mine.'

And then at last 'E said one word, 'E just said one word 'Well?'”

The narrator, knowing he has failed to live a good life, asks to go to Hell, but

“'E answered 'No

'You can't, that 'Ell is for the blind, 'And not for those that see.

'You know that you 'ave earned it, lad, 'So you must follow me.

'Follow me on by the paths o' pain, 'Seeking what you 'ave seen,

'Until at last you can build the "Is," 'Wi' the bricks o' the "Might 'ave been."'

(From The Unutterable Beauty: The Collected Poetry of G. A. Studdert Kennedy--you can read the whole poem here)

From the ground we walk on to the people we meet, all are incarnations of the Holy. When we are blessed, we ought to live in a state of returning the blessings. Like the observant Jew and in company with Paul, we ought to try to ask a blessing on everything that comes our way. Some things won’t be easy to bless or find a blessing in. In the Hebrew tradition, a prayer of blessing for bad news is “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, the Judge of Truth.”

It is up to me to be open and aware of the blessings in all things. L’Engle quotes H.A. Williams who says, “Justification by faith means that I have nothing else on which to depend except my receptivity to what I can never own or manage.” I ran across a gentle reminder of the importance of accepting each step as a blessing. Probably you’ve seen the “Daffodil Principle” since it circulates the email regularly. It’s the true story of a Rushing Springs, CA woman who annually, since 1958, planted daffodils on the hill near her home. Apparently tours ended in 2009 (at least according to the articles I found.) (If you haven’t seen it, one version is found on the internet here  and a video of the garden here.)

At the end, the narrator says, “’It makes me sad in a way,' I admitted to Carolyn. 'What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!'
My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. 'Start tomorrow,' she said.
She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, 'How can I put this to use today?'”

I hope this series of blog-meditations has left you with some thoughts about how to be receptive and open to the presence and blessing of God in all our routines. I hope this week I can remember to ask “how can I put this to use today?” Next week is Thanksgiving. See you then.

* Quotations from Walking on Water, L’Engle and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, unless otherwise noted.

Routinely Labeling or Naming

God is found in the routines of our lives. Whether we are hiking through a forest or plodding down a city street, God is with us. If we are aware of the sights and sounds and smells around us or if we are lost in numb repetition, the Holy lingers on the edge of consciousness waiting to be invited in. Finding God nearby can be as unexpected as coming across this squirrel I saw in a public garden in downtown Denver a couple of years ago.

George Eliot says, “If we had a keen vision of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat…As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.” That ‘stupidity’ keeps us from awareness of the One who created all and makes us prone to labeling things and people. We may say liquor or candy are bad, while milk and fruit are labeled as good. People are lumped into groups with convenient tags. In this election we’ve heard more than enough of candidates categorizing each other as pro-this or anti-that. It is too simple to make decisions based on such rhetoric, but we are all guilty. Someone poorly dressed and dirty approaches and we automatically assume they are homeless and planning to ask for money. Maybe the person is a day laborer heading home or even an eccentric millionaire.

Madeleine L’Engle insists, “To name is to love. To be Named is to be loved.” She says, “The name of God is so awe-ful, so unpronounceable, that it has never been used by any of his creatures…But we, the creatures, are named, and our names are part of our wholeness.” The converse is true, too says L’Engle. When we label those around us we are Un-Naming them according. She notes, “It seems that more than ever the compulsion today is to identify, to reduce someone to what is on the label…If we are pigeonholed and labeled we are un-named.

We have to be careful and aware of the way we encounter others as I blogged a month ago. It is easy to label or just ignore, but as Taylor reminds us, “At its most basic level, the everyday practice of being with people is the practice of loving the neighbor as the self…it is the practice of coming face-to-face with another human being, preferably someone different enough to qualify as a capital “O” Other—and at least entertaining the possibility that this is one of the faces of God.”

Seeing the Face of God in each other is an awesome responsibility. The group Casting Crowns song “If We are the Body” is a not so subtle reminder that as Christians we are the Body of Christ and as such we are the hands, arms, feet of God.

It's crowded in worship today

As she slips in

Trying to fade into the faces

The girls' teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know

Farther than they know.

But if we are the body

Why aren't His arms reaching?

Why aren't His hands healing?

Why aren't His words teaching?

And if we are the body

Why aren't His feet going?

Why is His love not showing them

There is a way? There is a way?

A traveler is far away from home

He sheds his coat

And quietly sinks into the back row

The weight of their judgmental glances tell him that his chances

Are better out on the road...

But Jesus paid much too high a price

For us to pick and choose who should come

And we are the body of Christ…

In the coming week, I plan to try to be more aware of times when I ‘label’ rather than ‘name’ people—and in some cases it won’t be easy. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll see in the ‘Other’ the face of Christ. Maybe, just maybe, I can be the hands or feet or face of Christ to someone else.

Next week will be the conclusion of this series with a look at the Blessings we can find when we see God in the routines.

* Quotations from Walking on Water, L’Engle and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, unless otherwise noted.

God when we Get Lost

Last week we looked at interrupted routines. Routines are like predictable paths. In fact, often they ARE predictable paths. I don’t know about you, but I usually take the same route to and from work every day. I know pretty well how to time the lights along the route so I don’t have to stop. It’s the same with my daily habits. If I don’t have time to do my morning journaling or check the email before work, I feel out of kilter.

It’s amazing how early in life we fall into routines. This week we, my husband & I, babysat for our grandson while his mommy was in the hospital having his baby sister. He’s 4 and already has a set way of getting ready for bed. First he puts away toys, then gets into night clothes, then you have to read two stories, then he looks at books for a little while in his room before climbing into bed. You forget any step of that routine at your own peril. In the morning he has a series of steps that can’t be hurried, even if Grandma has to get to her own house before taking him to preschool and going to work! (He really is excited about his sister, I just caught him with an expression that says 'quit taking pictures'.)

Barbara Brown Taylor suggests that there is a spiritual discipline in getting off the regular paths and getting lost “because once you leave the cow path, the unpredictable territory is full of life.” She also says that when you get lost you have the opportunity to “take a good look around to see where you are and what this unexpected development might have to offer you.”

Getting lost doesn’t necessarily have to be taking a wrong turn. It might be “getting lost looking for love…between jobs…looking for God…” Getting lost can be an opportunity to “move through my own chattering to God to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say,” according to Madeline L’Engle.

In thinking about this week when I was ‘lost’ from my routine I thought that the opposite had happened. Because I was rushing to get everything done I didn’t think I had really taken time to pray. Then I realized that I DID find some ‘out of routine’ prayer times. God woke me up in the middle of the night for some intense prayer time! Driving to work (and feeling rushed) I found myself praying the Lord’s Prayer to calm and center myself! Keble, in his closing stanza, notes that our daily goal should be to ‘live more nearly as we pray.’

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love,

fit us for perfect rest above;

and help us, this and every day,

to live more nearly as we pray

Getting lost from our routines, or in the midst of the routines, might give us just the interruption needed to turn back to God. Along our routine paths, God can become routine. When we are lost, God is very near. ‘Getting lost’ on purpose—taking a different way home or stopping at a park can offer respite with God. When life sends you down a path you weren’t expecting and you feel lost or just out of kilter, you may discover new ways of talking to God.

Sometimes we end up really lost, like the Prodigal Son, even feeding pigs like in this Bartolomé Esteban Murillo painting. We are far from the normal, comfortable home we envisioned. When we hit bottom, we are indeed at the “Ground of Being.” Paul Tillich, a 20th century theologian, coined that phrase for God as the source of all being. Like the Prodigal Son, that is often when we ‘come to ourselves’ and say “Father I am not worthy to be called your son/daughter. Make me as one of your servants.” (Luke 15:11-32) The good news is that God welcomes us back as if we had never left!

Max Lucado (Cure for the Common Life) notes that “We need regular recalibrations…But who has time…? You have carpools to run; businesses to run; sales efforts to run; machines, organizations, and budgets to run. You gotta run…Christ repeatedly escaped the noise of the crowd in order to hear the voice of God. He resisted the undertow of the people by anchoring to the rock of his purpose: employing his uniqueness (to "preach to the other cities also") to make a big deal out of God ("the kingdom of God") everywhere he could.”

Getting lost may just be the recalibration you need. Look back over your life to see where you ‘got lost’ from the path you had plotted out for your life. Taylor says, “the practice of getting lost is both valuable and undervalued…in this culture [where] the point is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible…doing at least five other things while you are in transit.” Think about where God was in the times you felt lost. If you find yourself ‘lost’ outside your routine this week—look for the Holy in the changed circumstances.

Next week we’ll look at how labeling one another is a way of keeping our norms and routines ‘secure’.

* Quotations from Walking on Water, L’Engle and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, unless otherwise noted.

God in our Interrupted Routines

There are many things that interrupt our routines. Some are delightful-like a family visit, some not so much-like pain or bad news. This month has been filled with interruptions for me. There was the visit from our daughter and her family, including 3 grandchildren, another grandbaby due to be born any day (different daughter), and preparations for the consecration of a bishop. All nice things, but they have kept me from my normal routines.


John Keble says,
The trivial round, the common task,
will furnish all we ought to ask:
room to deny ourselves; a road
to bring us daily nearer God

It is true that the daily routine can and does lead us closer to God. It is comforting to have a nice, set routine to follow. We don’t like to have our well organized lives interrupted and do our best to cling to the ‘trivial round, the common task’. However, sometimes it is the interruptions that present us with the opportunity to find an even more intimate experience of the Holy One.

The visit from our daughter reminded me of how enthusiastic children are. They visited during Balloon Fiesta and were delighted every time a hot air balloon was sighted near our house. A trip to the zoo was also a full of eager exploration. As noted in previous posts, the routines of life can numb us to that sort of delight. Sometimes an interruption reminds us, as adults, of the need to be passionate about our relationship with God.
Sometimes it is in the uncomfortable and even painful interruptions that God finds us. As CS Lewis points out, in The Problem of Pain, “[when my house of cards tumbles down] for a day or two [I] become a creature consciously dependent on God’s grace…Let Him but sheathe that sword…and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over-I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness.”

Barbara Brown Taylor notes that many of the world’s great religions grew out of an experience of suffering. She says, “Pain makes theologians of us all. If you have spent even one night in real physical pain, then you know what that can do to your faith in God, not to mention your faith in your own ability to manage your life.”

We look for the reason for our pain when something goes wrong and often blame God. However, if we embrace the suffering, we discover something astonishing and even miraculous-God is with us in the agony. In our pain we discover common ground with others because all of us does experience some sort of sorrow or pain or grief. Like the hummingbird hovering over this flower, there is beauty even in the hurt.

Our culture often makes us believe that life is meant to be a bed of roses and that obtaining just the ‘right’ car, house, dress, etc. will make us happy. Lewis shines a different light on the reason for difficulties. He notes that trials and tribulations are a way of reminding us that our “modest prosperity and happiness…[is] not enough to make [us] blessed…all this must fall from [us] in the end, and if [we] have not learned to know Him [we] will be wretched.”

Madeline L’Engle tells of the time when her 9 year old granddaughter was hit by a truck. She says that all she could do was “say with Lady Julian of Norwich, ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well,’ and then to add, ‘No matter what.’ That was the important part, the ‘no matter what’…It made me affirm to myself that God is in control no matter what, that ultimately all shall be well, no matter what.”

Problems have a way of leveling the playing field, too. Think of the way communities suddenly pull together in the face of a natural disaster and families often come together around the bed of a sick member. In the commonality with each other, we find communion and ultimately healing.


Disruptions of routines can be blessings if embraced as gifts from God. They can turn into times when we encounter God. Over the next couple of weeks, I will try to look at the ‘interruptions of routine’ as opportunities to find God not distractions from God.

Next week we’ll look at how Getting Lost—an interruption of routine, too, can help us find God.

* Quotations from Walking on Water, L’Engle and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, unless otherwise noted.

God Met in Routine Encounters

The anonymous author of a devotion I read recently reminded me that “we are not merely [individuals] …It is as a people gathered…that we find sustaining strength.” The writer is referring to Christianity, but the same holds true for all human interaction. We need each other.


Keble agrees. As the hymn says,
Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
as more of heaven in each we see;
some softening gleam of love and prayer
shall dawn on every cross and care.

Our friends help us see heaven because they share our views and love us. There are many other people, though, who aren't in our circle. We like to think we outgrow wanting to be in the 'in crowd' when we get out of Middle School, but it's not necessarily true. Barbara Brown Taylor states “there are people in all of our communities who do not belong to any of the same groups we do...Some of them stand right in front of us. [The clerk] is someone who exists even when she is not ringing up your groceries, as hard as that may be for you to imagine.”

It is not easy to be aware and actively engaged with each person you meet. Many of us would rather remain safely with our carefully selected friends. Madeline L’Engle warns that we easily fall into the trap of judging those who don’t agree with our beliefs and even with our likes and dislikes, but we can move beyond that. She notes that her husband likes beets, which she does not. “We do not have to enjoy precisely the same form of a balanced meal.” Likewise, we don’t have to each like the same art or worship in exactly the same way. L’Engle admits, “But how difficult it is for us not to judge.”

Keble talks about ‘old friends’. Isn’t there a possibility that we might find heaven in new friends if we are open to seeing one another as beloved creations and children of the same Father? Taylor states, “Encountering another human being is as close to God as I may ever get-in the eye-to-eye thing, the person-to-person thing—which is where God’s beloved has promised to show up.”

At first it sounds odd and even frightening to think of being that open and vulnerable to everyone we encounter. ‘How can I look at the drunk, homeless man in the same way I look at my child?’ we ask. ‘What if I am friendly and open, but the clerk is snippy or ignores me?’ It is easy to come up with rational excuses to not really look at the person in front of us, isn’t it?

The Christian music group Casting Crowns has a song called “There is Hope” that offers a new way to look at ‘every man’. Watch the video and see what you think.

There is Hope

As the musicians remind us, Jesus is the Hope.

There is hope for every man

A solid place where we can stand

In this dry and weary land

There is hope for every man

There is love that never dies

There is peace in troubled times

Will we help them understand?

Jesus is hope for every man

Jesus told his followers (and us), “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) That is the kind of love Taylor and Casting Crowns are talking about. I like the way Taylor paraphrases Jesus: “love the God you did not make up with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and the second…to love the neighbor you also did not make up as if that person were your own strange and particular self.”

How can we offer hope to others and give them 'a solid place on which to stand'? This week, I challenge you to really look at just one person as if they were, as Taylor says, “as if that person were your own strange and particular self.” Maybe hope is as simple as a real smile to the clerk who is tired or the bus driver who has been fighting traffic all day.

Next week we’ll look at how finding God in the routines can be healing.

* Quotations from Walking on Water, L’Engle and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, unless otherwise noted.

Altars in our Routine

So far, in this series, we’ve looked at several ways to find God in the day-to-day routines of life. Spiritual routines of daily prayer time and Bible reading certainly help us listen to God and follow the right path. The so called secular things in our lives can also be ways to find God nearby. Taking time to be like a child and let our imagination work, stopping to really observe the ground under our feet and the beauty around us, and even the symbols around us can be icons of God to us.


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.

God in our Routine Images

Our lives are filled with images. TV, billboards, magazines, internet, books, and street signage are just a few of the things we see every day. Many times we don’t even think about them. You know the hexagonal sign means stop so you don’t really LOOK at it. That billboard on that corner advertises a law office and has for years, so we don’t see it, really. We pass the same house day after day, but when we suddenly notice it’s a different color, we wonder “How long has it been like that?” It’s easy to get so lost in the same routine that we don’t really pay attention to what we see.

The third verse of Keble’s hymn suggests that if we pay attention, we may find God present everywhere:
If on our daily course our mind
be set to hallow all we find,
new treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

When our mind is willing to “hallow all we find,” each and every thing we see can become an icon showing us God.

Madeline L’Engle explains, “an icon is a symbol, rather than a sign…[it] contains within it some quality of what it represents…an icon of the Annunciation…contains, for us, some of Mary’s acceptance and obedience, and so affects our own ability to accept, to obey.” An icon is a representation of a piece of the Holy, something that opens our hearts and souls to see a bit more of God.

A traditional icon is a piece of wood painted with a holy image, but there are icons of God all around us, if we are just open to them. Stories, music, ‘secular’ art, a sunset can each be an icon. “There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred,” says L’Engle, “and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.”

Both L’Engle and Barbara Brown Taylor infer that the Incarnation is in fact the most holy of all icons. God in flesh is a very real symbol of the Divine, who loves our human-ness. Brown remarks, “I came late to the understanding that God loved all of me—not just my spirit but also my flesh…[and] God loved all bodies everywhere.”

Brown suggests taking on a “daily practice of incarnation—of being in the body with full confidence that God speaks the language of the flesh.” Jesus was God become Man, so he does know our fleshly needs. In the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen named humanity as an icon—a symbol of divine work and love. She wrote, “God be praised in his handiwork: humankind. And so, humankind full of all creative possibilities, is God’s work. Humankind alone, is called to assist God, humankind is called to co-create.”

L’Engle notes that we are co-creators with God and with one another. Authors, artists, and musicians create, but as she notes, “The reader, viewer, listener, usually grossly underestimates his importance. If a reader cannot create a book along with the writer, the book will never come to life.”

Are there icons around you—symbols of the Holy One—that you haven’t paused long enough recently to notice? What if, for just one day, we tried to be aware of each thing we pass on our daily journey? We might just encounter God with “new treasures still, of countless price” as Keble says.

Next week, we will explore further what it means to be awake and aware of God in our routines.

* Quotations from Walking on Water, L’Engle and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, unless otherwise noted.