Musings Along Life's Way: Intimacy

I am learning that as I move through this life the more intimate I am with my life, God and others, the more fully I know myself. And there are so many ways into that Intimacy -- it is almost as if she calls me our of my smaller world into the larger life that is held in love, nay, that is Love itself. It is like spring.

Today it is plum blossoms that burst into my consciousness, that shock me with their beauty, the outrageousness of their display, clearing my mind, my heart, so that things just become wonderfully simple -- beautiful and simple. There were just these plum blossoms as I walked along -- nothing else. There are other ways of moving into this Intimacy. One way is through a formal worship service. Sometimes the music and the liturgy seem so beautiful, so reverent, that all the veneer is simply removed -- and there we are, hearts wide open to God -- to the love that will not let us go. With our hearts open, Spirit rushes in. And then, I have a close encounter with a friend, or attend a worship service that is less formal, one that celebrates the horizontal relationships in life (as opposed to the "vertical" relationship we have with God). In those close encounters, the eternal again breaks through. The question I constantly ask of myself: the plum blossoms, the friend, the formal worship all these lead me to this un-nameable Intimacy -- what is most real? I don't see God in the plum blossoms, the friend, or the worship -- IT is the Intimacy -- heart open, the Mystery of the Universe so close, so close.


This coming Sunday I am preaching on the story of Elijah's encounter with God on Mt. Horeb. A big storm comes, an earthquake, etc...but the writer says, "God is in none of these." Rather, God is encountered in the "Small still voice," or variously translated, "the sound of sheer silence." Maybe this is the Intimacy, that relationship that we feel ourselves into, the one that asks us to have a simple, open heart.
Love is the Way,
David