In his book, Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety by Henri Nouwen, Nouwen says, “The great art of spiritual living is to pay attention to the breathing of the spirit right where you are and to trust that there will be breathing of new life.” Where is God breathing new life into yours?
Where is God?
A Lamentation Reflecting on One Year with Covid-19
Is God in the isolation?
Is God in the loneliness?
Is God in the confinement from one another?
Is God in my darkness?
Is God in my nightmare?
Is God in my endless days followed by my ever-hastening months?
Is God in the way things used to be?
Is God in the new normal?
Is God in the undiscovered country beyond our knowing?
Where is God?
Is God in the masked?
Is God in the disbelieving?
Is God behind the eyes of the helpless bystander?
Is God in the patient?
Is God in the health care worker?
Is God in the disease itself spreading silently?
Is God in the survivors?
Is God in the ones lost?
Is God in the weeping of the ones who remain behind?
Where is God?
Is God in the words?
Is God in the empty spaces?
Is God in the silence where music once sounded?
Is God in the question?
Is God in the certainty?
Is God in the space surrounding the two?
Is God in the beginning?
Is God in the ending?
Is God in the all-important cohesion of being?
Where is God?
A voice cries out, “where is God?”
WHERE IS GOD?
And God is in all of those places, light and dark, rejoicing and pain, thanksgiving and grief.
God is in the tears of laughter and in the tears of anguish.
God is in the agony and in the triumph of the healers and of those unhealed.
God is in the highest ecstasies and in the lowest despairing.
God is in both belief and doubt.
God is in the farthest reaches of my understanding and in the smallest realms of the unseen.
God is in my yesterdays, all of my tomorrows, and even my nows.
The question is not “where is God?”
That is not the question.
The question is “where am I?”
COLLECT OF THE DAY
O God, you have given us the good news of your abounding love in your Son Jesus Christ: So fill our hearts with thankfulness that we may rejoice to proclaim the good tidings we have received; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
LISTEN TO "WHICHEVER WAY YOU TURN"
Click below to listen to John Philip Newell's song "Whichever Way You Turn," sung by Fran McKendree and Friends.
LISTEN TO PODCAST "KABBALAH AND EVERYDAY MYSTICISM"
Click below to listen to the On Being podcast, featuring Lawrence Kushner.
LISTEN TO PODCAST "ENCOUNTERING GOD IN THE WORLD"
Click below to listen to the For People podcast with Bishop Rob Wright. This episode, titled "Encountering God in the World," has special guest Barbara Brown Taylor.
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