God Watching Day 20

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now." Matthew 6:34a
The Message

In the sermon I heard yesterday in talking about the Gospel, P said "Everything is created in God's image and belongs to God." You know, I am sure I have heard that phrase, about being created in God’s image, thousands of times in my life but for some reason it went into my brain in just a little different way this time and it has stayed with me every since Sunday morning. Maybe it was all the beauty of place and people and the work they are undertaking that is so clearly driven by the Spirit. Or the amazing “coincidences” of all that is going on in my life right now. Or the quiet peace and beauty of the late afternoon in C’s grove. But what I heard THIS time that has my head and my heart and will not let me go is this. Everything looks like God.

There is a rock in C’s grove. A huge piece of granite. It’s big enough for me to curl up on and rest. And when I do so, I feel, I know something in a way that is completely not connected to my head! A sense of agelessness, of the short span of our little time here on this planet compared to all the time that has been and will be…to God’s time. I feel at once small and large, vulnerable and infinitely safe. I feel a sense of connection to life that links me to this rock, to the earth that cradles it, to the trees that surround it and the land that goes on from there, and all the creatures that find homes in all those places, from the most microscopic to those whose presence I sense but do not see, those who come forth to be petted, and even those like me. Everything looks like God.

It’s no secret that I am completely enchanted with the light out here on the prairie. This time of year especially I am kind of a nut about it. I carry my camera in the car and have been known to almost drive off the road trying to take a picture of just that perfect moment as it catches in a field. It’s truly one of the things that helped me make the transition from my city life when I moved here. Finding beauty in my new home helped me survive the loneliness and the isolation of that first year. I have never lost the love for that light, or the desire to try to describe it. In words, with my camera and now with paint. It has a kind of grandeur and splendor here that I have never experienced before. The sky is so big, the color so embracing and warm. It has its own presence and I find myself sometimes feeling almost gathered in by it. My practical friend S reminds me that part of what I love is caused by dust….the dust generated by the harvest. But this only adds to it all in a way. The light is not only beauty, but a beauty that is part of what feeds us. Everything looks like God.

P said something else in his sermon that won’t let me go. That not only are we all in that image of God... looking like God….. but that we all belong to God. That gives everything a huge sense connectedness. The rock and the grove and the creatures therein, the fields of the harvest and those that are fed by it…We all look like God. We all belong to God.