CowPi Journal

Some Days

30 April 2005, 3 pm | Book, Reflection

From Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs:

There’s no answer, no problem-solving, simply awareness. You cannot not live in the presence of God. You are totally surrounded by God as you read this. St. Patrick said,

God beneath you,
God in front of you,
God behind you,
God above you,
God within you.

You cannot earn this God. You cannot prove yourself worthy of this God. Feeling God’s presence is simply a matter of awareness. Of enjoying the now. Deepening one’s presence. There are moments when it happens. Then life makes sense. Once I can see the Mystery here, and trust the Mystery even in this piece of clay that I am, in this moment of time that I am—then I can also see it in you. I am able to see the divine image in myself, in you, and eventually in all things. Finally, the seeing is one. How you see anything is how you will see everything.

Either we see the divine image in all created things, or we don’t see it at all.

I want to see the face of God. God is already here, around me, in everything and in everyone. All I have to do is be aware. But how? How do I learn to “see”? One answer: prayer and living in the now. But how on the now?

Some days I think I can see Christ in the eyes of everyone I encounter. Some days I can’t. Some days everything seems to sparkle with life and energy. Some days my vision is dull, clouded and blurred. Some days anxiety and fear engulf me. Some days I simply trust and I be. Some days prayer comes easy—easy in words, easy in silence. I drink from the eternal spring and I’m refreshed. Some days, well, it’s forced and dry. Some days I feel like Martha, some days like Mary.

Every day is a dance between the real me and the worldly me—the real me connected intimately with God, who trusts, who lets go and never controls, who never hurts, and the created-ego me connected to the ways of the world, who hides behind a fragile facade, who is fearful and demands control, who hurts. The real me is aware. The ego-me only thinks he is aware.

And so I pray often, especially when I wash my hands:

Lord Jesus Christ,
purify my heart
so that I may see you,
so that I may see you in others,
and others may see you in me.