Recognizing God

Hosea 5:4b They wouldn’t recognize God if they saw me.

Do I recognize God in my life? Can I see the Hand of the Divine at work in my world? If God is everywhere, then God is always here with me now. What does it take to open my senses to God’s presence? Huston Smith, a religious scholar who has been interviewed frequently by Bill Moyers, wrote in one of his books that: Atheists believe there is no God, polytheists believe there are many gods, monotheists believe there is one God and mystics believe there is only God. Ever since I read that I’ve known that mysticism called to me. Einstein said that either nothing is a miracle, or everything is a miracle. It’s a choice, and I choose the wonder and curiosity of the miraculous every time. But choosing and living are not the same. How do I live the awareness of the Presence of the Holy One?

Karen Armstrong points out that the God of the mystics is approached primarily through the organ of the creative imagination, the image-making, non-linear side of the brain. In the book My Stroke of Insight, its author describes her experience of oceanic transcendence as a stroke put her linear, left brain out of commission. And what is the benefit? A sense of deep peace and connection with all that is, the life all around us: other people, other species and all of creation.

So today, my intention is to see God everywhere I look, in ugliness as well as beauty, in struggle as well as peace, in raucous activity as well as quietness. I can only do that by slowing down, breathing and taking each moment as it comes, encouraging myself to notice the silence between the words, the ineffable in everything I touch, and to behold it all with the heart of compassion.

Prayer: Dear God, I long to see Your presence and beauty every moment of my life. Open the eyes of my heart to better apprehend Your Divine Being all around me in the people and things of the every day. Amen.