PRESENCE Recognizing the Divine in Your Everyday Life

PART I

ENCOUNTERING DIVINE PRESENCE

Chapter 1

Looking for Something

The beach can be enlightening. This day was no different, with a calm breeze, the lapping of bay waves, and still-warm sand. As summer and fall struggled to decide what temperature it should be, and with only a few people to be seen, I walked slowly at the water’s edge that morning with my beloved shaggy terrier, Pixie, running ahead. Someone in the distance, who was slower than I, greeted Pixie, who had nosed her way into the solo walk of the stranger.

The woman, about 40ish and pretty, had that beachy casual style of not needing to care about looks. She turned as I attempted to keep my dog from being a nuisance. All was clearly in good stead when we made the expected greeting as two people on a morning beach walk often do, with smiles and a sharing of how lovely all of it was.

She carried a plastic bag with her, partially filled with something I couldn’t see, and she clearly was searching for something in the sand. She told me that about a year before, after many years of strolling on this beach, she had found the handle to a trunk or drawer that was intriguing in its age and look, and she had taken it to the local museum for identification. She learned that the Maria Johanna, a Dutch merchant ship, had sunk not far into the bay sometime in the 1700s. For centuries, no one remembered it being there. Then, a few decades ago, a boat began dredging the area. Its heavy digging device literally shattered the Maria Johanna, unintentionally destroying what had previously lain sleeping and untouched. Glass windows were smashed, and the cargo of liquor bottles was destroyed.

Now, after many years, glass fragments still wash up on shore, particularly when a low tide leaves the path of shells, stones, and sea animal remains in wavy lines that parallel the water’s edge. The broken glass, now smooth for the bathing of the waves and sand, washes up with the rest of nature.

Having found the handle, and learning of this story from the local museum, the beachcomber began a search for something that had been there all along, the glass pieces from the bottles and windows, but until now had not been in her awareness. She showed me how to recognize them on the sand, how they proved to be glass when holding them up to the light of the sun, and how to tell the difference between the window glass and the bottle glass.

I come to the shore now about three times a week and continue to search for the glass, she said showing me the plastic grocery bag with that day’s found pieces in it. I have thousands of pieces I’ve collected. It is my passion to collect these. It still amazes me that something that has been here my whole life just became present in my life last year, and now I see it easily, and it gives me such joy and purpose to find it.

This collector learned to recognize the glass treasures from the sea through her newfound awareness and focus, as well as her new knowledge, and in this pursuit she found a sense of purpose.

The beach can be enlightening.

(Photo by M. Jackson)

Each time the collector visits the beach, she brings a second bag to collect trash left on the beach to keep it clean. That simple act, so easy to add to her passion of glass collecting, protects the birds and other marine life that might mistake plastic for food.

We walked together for a while as I looked at the glass pieces she collected that day and I learned how to recognize them. After a while, I felt it was time to part, so Pixie and I turned around toward the direction from which we had come. The woman and I spoke pleasant goodbyes and shared smiles before I stopped and turned back. I felt that I should have asked her name, but somehow it didn’t happen, and I felt the loss of a missed opportunity.

Recognizing the Divine in everyday life takes awareness, focus, purpose, and knowledge of a language that expands beyond words.

(Photo by Robert Els for Quechua Benefit)

Within just a minute, as I walked back, I passed another person, and again, introduced by Pixie’s greeting, we began to have idle chat. Having missed the opportunity to ask my glass collector her name, I made sure I wouldn’t do that again, and when I asked this second person what her name was, she responded, Mary. I was surprised to hear my own name, Mary, spoken aloud.

As I later reflected on that morning, I became increasingly aware of the deeper meaning in my walk. I had traveled to the beach to begin the writing of this book. I decided to take a walk on the beach before starting chapter 1, page1. How present of the Divine to have me come face-to-face with a living metaphor that would become the beginning. The beachcomber’s story of searching was an example of looking for something that had always been there, but not recognized. That she was there, that we met and spoke, make the event more profound than a casual and easily forgotten encounter. Even the details of the encounter had significance.

Further along in this book, we will uncover symbols that alert us to God’s presence. Some people view the sea as a symbol of the mind of God, and the ship can represent the life journey we are on. When I failed to ask for the name of the first person I met in the morning, I asked the second, and it was the same name as mine. I wonder, was God calling me by name to be aware of the companionship and will of the Divine as I was about to begin my writing?

I am not always sure of the meaning of experiences like these. Like the Divine itself, they are a mystery, which can mean more than one thing; however, I am confident that the surfacing of symbols, metaphors, coincidences, and mysterious occurrences is a spiritual message from God saying, Pay attention! I am PRESENT! If we accept that God is present all the time, and that it is we who are absent, we can become more aware of that presence.

I would like you to open yourself up to the possibility that just as God spoke to people as recorded in the Bible, God may be speaking to us in the ways that words, concepts, events, and our spiritual journeys lie in front of us in abundance. If we can recognize when that communication reaches us, we can be connected to the Spirit and follow the divine message to support and guide us on our life path. Recognizing the Divine in everyday life takes awareness, focus, purpose, and knowledge of a language that expands beyond words.

Take some time to consider what makes you lose the ability to be aware, and what brings you to a keen sense of awareness. What is on your personal list of distractions? Do you fight your way through the fog of multitasking, overcommitment, exhaustion, urgent interruptions, getting bogged down in low priorities, or not prioritizing at all? Consider what happens when, just for a short time, you switch on your awareness.

Imagine, for example, that you are sitting on the corner of a busy street and mindlessly watching the cars go by. Hundreds may go by without your ever really noticing any of them. However, when a friend calls while you are sitting there and makes plans to pick you up in a few minutes in a red car, you begin to focus on red cars. There are many. As the time grows shorter, there seem to be even more red cars. Maybe you start asking yourself if maroon could be red, so you start noticing that color, too. Soon tomato red, orange red, brownish red, and more are on your radar. Now you are seeing red cars all over the place! Would you like the presence of the Divine to be like that in your life, where you see the Divine everywhere, just because you started noticing?

Noticing what is in front of you is not always so easy. Have you ever played Where’s Waldo? In a picture with scores of small images, a simple drawing of a man named Waldo hides in plain sight. Your task is to find Waldo. It can take a long time, it can be frustrating, and you may even give up. How is that like your experience of seeking to find God every day? Maybe we can learn from looking for Waldo.

There are widely publicized techniques to increase one’s effectiveness to find Waldo quickly. Among them is to spend some time looking at a picture of Waldo all by himself before starting the hunt. The idea is, if your brain can get used to the image of him, once you shift your eyes to the complex drawing in which he is hiding, you can pick up the image more quickly.

Another technique is to anticipate where on the page there is the greatest likelihood he will show up. Some Waldo sleuths have mapped out by computer all the previous places he has been to show a pattern. Using that information, you may narrow your search to certain areas of the page to give you greater speed in your discovery. There are also visual patterns that may increase your proficiency. Looking at the stories that are depicted within the drawing can give you clues.

Let’s look at what it takes to begin recognizing the Divine in your everyday life. First, what are you looking for? What do you expect to see? It would be nice if God were easily recognized as the old stereotype of a large man with wavy white hair and a beard, with a deep melodic voice, wearing a robe, and sitting on a cloud above. Like Waldo, this God could be found hiding in plain sight.

In this book, we are going to consider some concepts that are like building blocks explaining the groundwork of spiritual understanding. They don’t demand that you believe them, but they have been very helpful to consider along my path, and I offer them to you to mull over throughout the book. Let’s look at the first two.

The first concept is God is a mystery. It isn’t as easy finding God as it is spotting Waldo. We want to explore recognizing the Divine as it relates just to you. The second concept is The Divine will appear to you in ways that only you recognize.

Although you call a number of people in your life friends, consider the uniqueness of each relationship. You may prefer one friend to talk with, another to have adventures with, one who is the best to be with when you are sad, and another who is your choice when you are happy and want to celebrate. You may share an interest with one and prefer to share your deepest feelings with another. They are all friends, and they are all in your inner circle.

Your neighbor has friends, too. Probably they are different people than those you have in your life, but they likely connect with your neighbor in a similar way as your friends connect with you. The concept that the Divine will appear to you in ways that only you recognize is similar to how only you recognize your friends and those special connections that have meaning only to you.

Your very best friend may be totally unimportant or unknown to your neighbor. God’s Spirit is in relationship with you in a unique and singular way. Just like you know your best friends like no one else knows them, you can know God in ways that only you recognize. It may not be as easy as finding Waldo on a printed page, but there are questions you can begin asking: How do I know when Spirit is present? How and when has God been present in my life? Even if it is a mystery, how do I know when I recognize the Divine? What name(s) do I use to call the God of my understanding? Focusing takes concentration, practice, and a different way of looking at things.

On a trip to the Grand Canyon, a spiritual place for many, I arrived by airplane at the Phoenix, Arizona, airport. My friend told me we would have to rent a truck to get our gear to the campsite we had reserved because my friend’s truck wasn’t working.

On the way to the campsite, it started to rain, and we discovered that the rental truck’s windshield wipers didn’t work. We had to keep going because we needed to get to our destination before dark fell. My friend didn’t want to drive with the rain causing an almost impossible obscuring of our view of the road, so I took the wheel to give it a