I went looking for God

I am God, I am creature

I am the Lord, I am the servant

I am the Throne, I am the carpet

I am water, I am fire

I am wind, I am earth

I am quantity, I am quality

I am finding, I am losing

I am Essence, I am attribute

I am nearness, I am distance

All existence is .... my existence

I am only, I am unique. "

                               ‘Abd al –Qadir

__________________________________________

I went looking for God today

for some reason the Sacred seemed a little lost

as if the holy had gotten waylaid

somewhere along the way to my sould

I looked for God in the sunrise

In the darkling clouds that speckled the sky

I looked in the calves, dancing in the pasture

as anxious mothers trotted behind

telling them, I am sure, to be careful

I looked for Sacred presence in the breezes

which weaving through the firs

was laden with the scent of the forest

I looked at the rising sun setting moon

and in the green that is bursting forth

everywhere, everywhere

it did not occur to me

that the Sacred might be in these aged joints

stiff and painful in the morning

or in my troubled brain

I did not look for God in Covid-19

nor in the fear and anguish it has created

I did not understand that God could be

in our crazy addled thinking

in our ideologically altered brains

grabbing ideologically altered facts

and in our foolishness

and yet God is everywhere,

in everything, and in every person

for God, as Jesus taught us

can be both Lord and servant

divine and human

comforting and troublesome

God makes God’s self present

one way or another in everything we see

everything we feel

everything we think

immanent and transcendent

(near and far)

comforting and challenging

teaching and guiding

using all creation

to be a part of our lives

I didn’t really need to look for God

God was here all along

As near as the beating of my heart

As near as my breath

As near as that despairing thought

As near as that moment

Of pure

joy