In my middle years, I move farther away from certainty about God to fall deeper into the mystery of it all. I sing, praise, dance, cry, plead, rage and wrestle my way into mystery.
I remember a life changing conversation many years back with a retired Methodist minister who had a reputation of being a progressive voice and a staunch ally of the LGBTQ community in this mainline, often conservative denomination. He was our dinner guest for an evening and he shared his own profound journey of leaving certainty behind to find Christ in unexpected places such as a Palestinian refugee camp with Muslim women wailing and weeping for their murdered sons.
Most of my own journey of going beyond the surface to find God everywhere has happened outside the church, which has often frustrated me with its attention to order and resistance to change.
Seeing God in the eyes of my newborn babies, the touch of their skin, the fragility of their beings.
Beholding God always in the natural world, through its changes which are constant and through all the ways of learning through the natural world which doesn’t rely on us to manage it but requires that we don’t destroy it.
Witnessing God in the Muslim tribal society of Guinea where everything comes from God and the life in faith is lived in community.
Feeling God’s presence in the jagged, painful, consuming fire of witnessing the suffering of my child, my own heart and soul.
Experiencing God through the eyes of a dying patient who looks at you with their whole soul in their eyes holding nothing back.
Fist pumping with God as I see a trauma survivor come into Extended Warrior, a posture that exudes strength and confidence and watch the spread of a smile as her heart opens to herself and the world.
God growing exponentially as people come together to support and help each other through music, plunging into Arctic waters, to walk as a healing presence with a brother or sister that struggles.
God in the absurdity of playing with spandex, silly snacking antics and social experiments that involve hugging people and blasting them with love.
Thank God that the seekers journey isn’t all about the dark night of the soul!
This is for me is also about expanding the metaphors of God.
Of course, my own exploration has been deep into the metaphor of God as feminine. Pure out and out funky, soul shaking Shakti, fierce Kali, the wind as Shekinah , Wisdom of Sophia, Mother Gaia and many, many more aspects of sacred consciousness with feminine attributes.
So, not throwing out the Trinity of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit but expanding it, fully knowing this will be considered heresy and having gratitude for the laws in place that will prohibit me from being burned at the stake as a holy heretic!
God as beloved! This is beautifully expressed by Song of Songs as well as Christian mystics Mechtild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich and Sufi Mystics Rumi, Hafiz and Kabir, Indian poets Lalla and Mirabei. This is pure Bhakti and also expressed in the contemporary Christian writings of Shane Claiborne in the New Monasticism.
God as Artist. God as Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. Behold I make all things new!
God as Revolution. God as Peace. See the paradox? The mystery?
In this season of Advent, preparing my heart and mind for the Word made flesh, expanding that awareness of the Word existing from the conception of time itself, not as an afterthought because we royally screwed up. This Word was with God in the beginning and became Emmanuel at a certain point in history. The Word is still with us today.
I grew up with this image of Jesus from the picture that is probably in every Sunday school room in mainline churches. It could be an ad for a Dove commercial. A friend recently gave me a picture of Jesus that looks more in line with how he probably looked, tangled hair, deep laugh lines around the eyes and mouth and skin weathered by the sea, sun and wind. I can hear him laughing just by looking at this, I have a feeling Jesus was really funny. Expanding. Exploring. Awakening. Seeking.
Everything is Holy Now.
“You there, who keep falling asleep in shallow waters, who float there on the surface of your life, wake up! Stop staring blankly, numb to the wonder of who you are. The God who is searches for you in the holy mundane of your days. Wake up! Keep watch! Your enlightenment is very near!”
Kayla McClurg
