Wednesday, March 26, 2008

My dearest God,

Could we ever lose you? Would you ever let us go?

An experience of faith touches a place down deep within. The experience leaves a mark on our mind and spirit. We think about it, reflect upon it. We embrace it and remember it, putting it in a place of total recall. At times we call it up, act upon it. Courage can arise from a single faith experience, remembered again and again.

But what if we want to live with you daily, not just when we go to the mountain? Mountain top experiences feel good; they renew our faith, make our love for you grow. But eventually we must come back from the mountain. We cannot live there permanently.

Faith grows best in the valley, where rich, fertile soil receives the seed, where living water falls regularly upon the seed and soil, allowing growth to take place. In such moments we are not looking back toward the mountain, but ahead where we are. When we are still, when we focus on you, when we are open, when we are willing, when we speak your name, when we are ready, you come to us and we begin to see you in the tiniest things.

I remember several years ago getting down on the ground and watching a tiny ant carry the weight of a bread crumb. I am sure the crumb weighed more than the ant, yet the insect was carrying his food and moving along. I thought to myself about the incalculable ability of an ant to carry more than his own weight. What an outstanding plan.

I have seen the impossible become possible right in the valley. A little boy in our congregation just recently was complaining to his father that he hadn't collected enough Easter eggs for his basket but when he saw a child next to him who had none, he took three eggs from his basket and hid them for the child. This same boy has had his own share of challenges, yet he saw a need and his heart strings were strummed and he was moved from self centeredness to other directed. The child who found the three eggs was delighted. The boy I think was surprised and pleased with himself. Is this not an act of sacred love? Did this boy not step forward to do what he could to help someone else? How is it possible that this child with so many challenges in his life would do such a thing if not for faith?

Faith is seeing life from a unique perspective. It is a recognition that something bigger is taking place than an act of my own will. It is seeing beauty in something small, even something not so pretty. Faith is about trusting the One who made the cosmos. It is giving ourselves to the greater good. Faith is about walking to a sacred tune. It is singing and dancing our praise when we recognize that faith has again worked. Faith is about love, being loved and loving at the same time. It is a recognition that I have been loved into the world. A simple act of sex can bring about a revolution of love, one person loving another, serving another, giving to another. God bringing life from God's own self.

Faith is thread running through the DNA, every cell. It is a livingness, an act of life that lives inside. Just as I cannot remove a single strand of DNA from every part of me, I cannot lift faith from the strand. I cannot rip and tear it from my soul.

If it is true that I am made in the image of God, then I must carry the gene of God, somehow, some way. I am made that way, created that way. I bear the mark of God, like it or not. I can make the gene within me beautiful or I can attempt to destroy it, making it into something else. This is all for nothing. Because I do not have the power to reconfigure what God has put inside me. I can act like it is different, but I can't really change it.

It is not possible for you to remove something so extraordinary from yourself, for we are part of you forever and ever.

Most Wonderful God,
this tiny exercise
this morning
just creates
more love
and trust
and faith
within me.
I know you
and you know me.
I am not God;
I do not attempt
to be God.
I like my place
with you.
For you are God
and I am yours.

Love, Andrea