I often find the morning meditations by Richard Rohr insightful and provocative. This one in particular speaks to me from the many passages in the gospel of John where Jesus is trying to explain that God, He and We are all one within each other. John 14: 20 and John 10: 30. That God is not out there as so many Christians have been brain washed to believe. God is not separate from us out there in the heavens somewhere. Take a few moments and listen to his morning devotion from Jan 5, 2018.
Where Is God?
When I was on retreat at Thomas Merton’s hermitage at
Gethsemani Abbey in 1985, I had a chance encounter that has stayed with me all
these years. I was walking down a little trail when I recognized a recluse,
what you might call a hermit’s hermit, coming toward me. Not wanting to intrude
on his deep silence, I bowed my head and moved to the side of the path,
intending to walk past him. But as we neared each other, he said, “Richard!”
That surprised me. He was supposed to be silent. How did he know who I was?
“Richard, you get chances to preach and I don’t. Tell the people one thing.”
Pointing to the sky, he said, “God is not ‘out there’!” Then he said, “God
bless you,” and abruptly continued down the path.
The belief that God is “out there” is the basic dualism that
is tearing us all apart. Our view of God as separate and distant has harmed our
relationships with sexuality, food, possessions, money, animals, nature,
politics, and our own incarnate selves. This loss explains why we live such
distraught and divided lives. Jesus came to put it all together for us and in
us. He was saying, in effect, “To be human is good! The material and the
physical can be trusted and enjoyed. This physical world is the hiding place of
God and the revelation place of God!”
Far too much of religion has been about defining where God
is and where God isn’t, picking and choosing who and what has God’s image and
who and what doesn’t. In reality, it’s not up to us. We have no choice in the
matter. All are beloved. Everyone—Catholic and Protestant, Christian and
Muslim, black and white, gay and straight, able-bodied and disabled, male and
female, Republican and Democrat—all are children of God. We are all members of
the Body of Christ, made in God’s image, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, whether
or not we are aware of this gift.
Can you see the image of Christ in the least of your
brothers and sisters? This is Jesus’ only description of the final judgment
(Matthew 25). But some say, “They smell. They’re a nuisance. They’re on
welfare. They are a drain on our tax money.” Can we see Christ in all people,
even the so-called “nobodies” who can’t or won’t play our game of success? When
we can see the image of God where we don’t want to see the image of God, then
we see with eyes not our own.
Jesus says we have to love and recognize the divine image
even in our enemies. Either we see the divine image in all created things, or
we don’t see it at all. Once we see God’s image in one place, the circle keeps
widening. It doesn’t stop with human beings and enemies and the least of our
brothers and sisters. It moves to frogs and pansies and weeds. Everything
becomes enchanting with true sight. We cannot not live in the presence of God.
We are totally surrounded and infused by God. All we can do is allow, trust,
and finally rest in it, which is indeed why we are “saved” by faith—faith that
this could be true.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Creation as the Body of God,”
Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, ed. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee (The Golden
Sufi Center: 2013), 235-241; and
Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (The
Crossroad Publishing Company: 2003), 58-59, 117-119.
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