So I got on the bike and road home and through the midst of the fall colours and all that is fall I saw... colours and fall.
In my family I saw people. In the food I ate I saw food.
Then I came back to school the next day.
I road again through the fall colours and I saw... fall colours.
I felt the cool morning air on my skin and the tingle in my arms as they got too cold.
I pulled up to the seminary and looked around.
Bikes, Rocks, Trees, Water, Birds, Air, People, Cold, Sun Sets, Sun Rises, all of these things.
And perhaps this is the problem... God isn't a thing (or perhaps more accurately, God is all things and then some). So the problem looks as if it is me. I'm looking at things and expecting to see the whole.
And perhaps a new set of eyes is what is required to see.
And perhaps a new set of ears is needed to hear.
And perhaps a new tongue, nose, sensory system is what is needed to realize what is so far away (or perhaps more accurately, what is so close and and all around.)
So if the assignment was to see "God" then I have not yet done that.
Except perhaps a little.
And not in all the places outside, but inside. Not inside me, but inside the interaction of two creatures - Me and the Janitor.
He talked of oiling the Organ and I talked of enjoying my bike ride. And in a way that is beyond a concrete way of saying, there was a sense of something bigger than both of us in the mundane conversation we had.
And perhaps this is the lesson,
just keep looking and don't be surprised when the thing you are looking for is found in the morning conversation with janitor.
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"Do not be in a hurry. Know that no matter how hard you push, you cannot push yourself beyond where you are, just as you are, in the present moment. Nor do you need to. For it is in the unplumbed depths of your being just the way you are in the present moment that your eternal union with God lies hidden. Remember that meditation is a way of slowing down so as to descend into the depths of yourself in the present moment, where God lies waiting to grant you a deep experience of your eternal oneness with God. [...] Don't delay in letting today be the day you renew your efforts to seek God in meditation by simply opening yourself to God in a spirit of wholehearted sincerity and simple, childlike faith. [...] By meditating day by day, the meditative awareness fostered and sustained in meditation will flash forth with ever greated frequency in all sorts of unexpected ways as you go through your day. You might, for example, be standing at the sink doing the dishes. As you look up, your heart is quickened in recognition of God in the gentle breeze that barely stirs a leaf on a branch of the tree just outside your kitchen window. You interiorly smile back at God, grateful that you are no longer surprised by these little surprises."
Christian Meditation, James Finely
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