It strikes me that we remember the sacred by our faithful, consistent reverence. This is the esteem we extend to the truth revealed to us in our lifetime. After all, Jesus didn’t abandon His reality, he lived it. Indeed He is the Truth! He ran away from nothing and always sought the wisest path through everything. He engaged in it all with acceptance of His bringing grace and love and mercy. He always had an eye out for cherishing His reality, His path.
I thought about all of this when an old friend who has been struggling, called me to share the recent blessings of God in his life — to change, to heal, to be good. He said to me: “I’m going to try my best to trust God’s constancy of love to hover over my crazy life. I’m fervent in my efforts to cultivate holy desires.” Is this not, dear friends, how we all find this other kind of stride and joyful engagement in our cherished reality we call life. The Holy rests in every single thing. Yes, it “hovers, over our crazy lives”…!
I remember meeting a family in Tanzania, Africa, who had just given birth to a daughter to whom they gave the Swahili name “Shangaa” — which means “surprise” in English. Shangaa’s birth surprised them as God’s mighty blessing because they gave birth in the middle of the famine and drought when so many births were still-births. This name always made me wonder if holiness is defined by surprises and that we are all meant to be surprised by God? I think surprise is what it means to embrace a contemplative, prayerful, and holy way of seeing the whole of our lives. Surprise gives us a window into the complexity of following Christ and keeps us from judging and scapegoating and demonizing. If we allow ourselves to be “surprised by God” then we quit measuring. We cease to Bubble-Wrap ourselves against reality. We stop trying to “homeschool” our way through the world so that the world won’t touch us and we can be in control. After all, it’s hard to embrace the world if we are so protective and defensively shielded from it so that that we can deceive ourselves into believing we are in control. My friend told me, “It’s taken me too many years to see the real world. And once ya see it — there’s only God there.”
He said to me, “I want to become more spiritual.”
Yet God is inviting us not to settle for just spiritual. We are living to our core as God wishes when we see the Holy in everything. The Holy not just found in the supernatural but in the Incarnational here and now. The truth is that God is surprising us all the time if we have the eyes to see.
The point of the Incarnation is that Jesus is one of us in the ordinary. Jesus is God’s declaration that the Infinite is present in it all.
Jesus ONLY referred to Himself as the Son of Man, which means the Human One. It must be important. It shows up eighty-seven times in the Bible. So never think you can’t be surprised by God. Never say “It’s not God!” If it’s human, if it’s in the flesh, if it’s always been present, take another look and be open to being surprised by God, once again. He’s hovering over you!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” Isaiah 55:8-9.
“Then the Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle” 1 Samuel 3:11.
“None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” 1 Corinthians 2:8-10.
“On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” John 2:1-25.
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