All our salvation begins on the level of common and natural ordinary things. Thomas Merton
Looking towards rather than away from life
God comes disguised as our lives, as Joan Chittester puts it. As work (Zechariah was on duty, ‘serving’), as complying with authorities (Joseph went to Bethlehem because of a census requirement), as family drama (meeting and greeting friends, a la Mary and Elizabeth) and of course as giving birth. We are to look towards rather than away from life. Maybe there are still remnants of an only Sunday God, an only In a church building God, not a ‘we live, and move and have our being in Him’ God?
God and the fabric of life
Edwina Gateley’s writings are sprinkled with such comments: “I do not need to seek God. God is already here waiting to be found, soaked in my reality. My journey is be one of recognising God, always, already present, and surfacing, that presence in my daily life.” Kathleen Norris witnesses to this in her quotidian writings, Etty Hillesum in her ‘Life interrupted’ . Life is not necessarily where we expect or want it to be. Life is lived in the gaps, write others. Of Thomas Merton Esther de Waal writes that ‘he points us to the places in which to look for God, and shows us that those places are there in front of us, right where we are’. J Philip Newell in his writings on Celtic christianity repeats the line that the sacred is not separate from the ordinary.
God it seems weaves Herself deeply into the fabric of life, in birth and in death. Emmanuel is God with us, a central message in the Advent narratives.
Question
Where in my day, life, insides do I see God, want to see God?