Is God visibly active in the world? Or did God set things in motion, winding up the clock and letting it go?
Small group discussion tonight centered around the topic, “God is in the Neighborhood.”
As one of our members walked up to our front door, she carried a load of concerns and as she passed by the garden bed, she took a moment to watch a bee on the head of a red, pom-shaped flower…and she said the “simple beauty” released within her a comforting thought that, “It will be alright.” Nature is often the connection to the Divine that touches that spark within us.
Another member shared that she had experienced a day of chaos and disappointment after working with a client and the client’s family. How she saw in them stages of grief and abandonment of loved ones. On the drive home from work, she said a prayer of hope and gratitude, realizing that every day gave opportunity for creating new relationships between that family, herself and God.
Julian of Norwich, the 13th century mystic would say, “All will be well.”
The stories continued with expressions of all the ordinary emotions and life events that bring us joy, sorrow, anger, celebration and the sense of God as steadfast in our lives. Even the mystical experiences that shake us to our core and turn us around in a matter of minutes, become the everyday way of walking with God because our eyes are always looking for Spirit’s movement in the world.
There is a “Mightiness” that comes from awakening within ourselves a response to life – a participation that follows the guiding spirit of God, and with heart and mind, an obedience to how that appears in the world and community.
The Psalmists wrote of a God who was personal, real and active in their days and their nights. There was a weaving together of cycles, nature, the heartbeat of the earth, the oceans and the trees that raised their branches to the skies, and they praised God for all that was before them and within them.
Beauty all around us,
Donna
