God who is more than God

Neither I nor the poets I love have found the keys to the kingdom of prayer,

And we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit,

But

I know that it’s a good idea to sit anyway.

So every morning, I sit, I kneel, waiting,

making friends with the habit of listening,

hoping that I am being listened to. . .

There, I greet God and my own disorder.

I say Hello

to my chaos,

my unmade decisions,

my unmade bed,

my desire and my trouble.

I say Hello

to distraction and privilege.

I greet the day, and I greet my beloved and bewildering Jesus.

I recognize and greet

my burdens,

my luck,

my controlled and uncontrollable story.

I greet

my untold stories,

my unfolding story,

my unloved body,

my own love,

my own body.

I greet

the things I think will happen,

and I say Hello to everything I do not know about the day.

I greet

my own small world,

and I hope that I can meet the bigger world that day.

I greet

my story,

and hope that I can forget my story during the day,

and hope that I can hear some stories,

and greet some surprising stories during the long day ahead.

I greet God,

and I greet the God Who is More God than the God I greet,

Hello to you all, I say,

as the sun rises above the chimneys of North Belfast.

Hello.

                                                              Pádraig Ó Tuama

_______________________________________________

Sometimes we like to think of God

as up there, out there

transcendent and aloof

separate

wandering perhaps

in the garden

in the cool of the day

and we hope against hope

that we can find a way

for God to stumble over us

we hope that for some glorious moment

God will notice us

there, squatting near the ground,

praying perhaps,

and touch us

as Jesus touched the woman

who touched the hem of his garment

so we sit

and pray

we squat in our own

inner places

populated with

the untidiness of life

that space littered with fear and failure

questions

and agendas

and desires

littered with the unknown

and the unresolved

and in that unkempt garden of

the mind

if we listen

we hear the sound of God’s voice

this is not where we expected to meet God

here in this disordered place

this is not when we wanted to meet God

not now

not surrounded by all this debris,

by our unwashed laundry,

and half finished dreams,

and broken relationships

yet here God is

immanent

and there is nothing to do

but say “hello”

and welcome God into our mess

welcome God and our mess

There is nothing to do but to “greet God,

and [] greet the God Who is More God than the God [we] greet,”

knowing that it is when we welcome all and God touches all,

that our small worlds become greater worlds,

that our paths become populated with surprising and joyful stories,

that our wounds become healed (if not cured)

So we greet God

And we sit with our “beloved and bewildering Jesus”

listening and being listened to,

there in the midst of the perplexing mess of our lives

We sit there with our transcendent and immanent God.

And we greet the day.