see God

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

When a Dog Runs Up (by Hafiz)

Start seeing everything as God, but keep

it a secret.

Become like the man and woman who are

awestruck and nourished

listening to a golden nightingale sing

in a beautiful foreign language while God,

invisible to most, nests upon its tongue.

Hafiz, who can tell in this world that

when a dog runs up to you wagging its

ecstatic tail, you lean over and whisper in

its ear,

“Beloved, I am so glad you are happy to

see me! Beloved, I am so glad, so very glad

you have come!”

__________________________________________

Start seeing God in everything

In everything

See God in the obvious places

In the mountains that soar

In sunrise an sunset

In flowers breaking through the ground

And reaching gloriously to the sky

In the grace of horses

And the lavish love of dogs

In the beautiful arrogance of cats

See it in the deer bounding over the fence

And in the grass, luxuriant after the rain

See it in beautiful babies

And homely babies

All babies are God

Incarnation now

See God in the saints

In the loving and the kind

In the volunteers

In the rescuers

See God in the generous and

The forgiving

But see the Sacred too in the places where it darkly hides

In humans, for example

Who are not saints, but perhaps, sinners

The addicted

Angry

Greedy

Dishonest

Abusive ones

See God in the bullies

In the corrupt

In the man lying in the ally, wet with his own urine

In the woman emaciated by meth

See God in the hurricane and the tornado

In the flood and

In the parched earth of the drought

Much of the time we will gently whisper the news in the quiet of our hearts

God is here, God is here

And there are times we will

Catch a saint or sinner unawares

And whisper

I am so very glad you are here

I am so very glad you are you

I am so very glad