Theater of Creation

Not everything is sumblime. Most of life, I suppose, is as ordinary as washing dishes. But God is in everything and that sort of changes the tenor of the game. I'm wondering tonight how much we should be looking for God in what I call the "holy ordinaries..."
     Several things have been drawing together to help me with this. First is the presence of God in everything he created, like a fingerprint. There is grace in all of creation, and we can go from grace to grace simply by walking from flower to tree to stone to rainstorm. To annoint ourselves with the natural world is to bathe in grace, and a healthy spirit craves such encounters.
     Then there is the grace in all people, since we also are creatures and by the same action, God's grace is present. So we go from hand to hand, person to person, voice to voice, constantly bathed in his presence.
     But it is just as true for our interior life, for we ourselves are created and imprinted by grace. Every thought, feeling, emotion, understanding makes God present. Granted, we need faith sometimes to believe it, but it means that as long as we have breath, we have God.
     So the spirit life needs nature, community and contemplation, to say the least. But I am never content with groups of three; I always look for the fourth, the completing element. And tonight I would have to say that the one other thing that is essential is God himself. No containers, no patterns, no plans or strategies. For faith to grow there must be undefended encounter with God. Direct encounter. The Old Testament writers warned against any attempt to do such a thing, as the encounter would mean death. But our saints tell us it is possible, not only possible, but destined. If not in the daily fabric of our lives, then eventually. Thomas Merton said it well when he said "There comes a time in ever man's life when he must stand on his own two feet in the presence of God."
     What this says to us, is that God wants to be intimate with us. To touch us without any protections, any barriers or distances. I think this touch comes in infinite forms, that anyone can have it but that we'd better abandon our predictions about what it will be like. Remember, God is present to us in things, people, even in our own selves. So what are we to do the day He steps out of the theater of creation and shows himself plainly?

     I think the best plan is to live in such a way as to be able to say, "I was expecting you..."