Hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Brother Frederick James,
The Monkey and Dogs.
We are on day 22 now of our series,
God Is.
And today.
I just want to acknowledge that You know,
The last few days we've been getting a bit adventurous.
We've talked about how God is in everything.
God is in the ordinary.
God is in beauty.
How creation is alive with God's presence,
And we've really allowed ourselves to sit with that.
The world's starting to look different.
The kettle isn't just a kettle and the dog isn't just a dog and the tree isn't just a tree.
The person sitting across from us isn't just another person.
Everything begins to shimmer.
With presence,
But now I think it's important to make a really well,
Important to extinction.
Because there's a danger here.
If God is everywhere,
We can very easily slide into saying everything is God.
And that,
As you can imagine,
Is not quite what.
We're signed.
God.
Is in all things.
But God is not.
All things.
God is present within creation.
But God is also beyond creation.
Remember back early on and more.
The universe is not God,
The tree is not God,
You are not God,
I am not God,
And yet somehow mysteriously God is present in all things.
These.
Things.
So as we begin today.
Let's just stop and pause and settle ourselves because we're going to recognize that our language starts to struggle here.
So let's take a nice deep breath in.
And out.
And as we become fully present in this moment,
Let's just consciously open our hearts and minds.
To what we're going to be exploring in this little episode today.
Because our hearts want categories.
This is the struggle.
Inside,
Outside,
Here,
There,
God or creation.
But as we've seen,
God doesn't fit neatly into the categories that we use for created things.
God is not an object somewhere within the universe.
God is the one in whom the universe exists.
And when you sit with that,
It becomes a very different way of imagining things.
The Universe.
Isn't a container with God.
Position them.
You know,
Can identify it as somewhere inside it.
Rather,
Creation itself exists within the mystery of God.
And that's why.
.
.
When you look at the scripture.
It can be so wonderfully expansive.
We've been focusing in on Paul in this series who spoke to us.
Of God as the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
Again,
Not beside us or above us or somewhere else,
But closer to existence itself than we usually imagine.
And yet,
Despite that proximity,
That closeness,
That almost disconnectedness,
God remains God.
A tree's still a tree,
The ocean's still the ocean,
You're still you.
Creation doesn't have to disappear into God for us to recognize God within creation.
In fact,
I think the opposite.
Is true.
We begin to see creation more truly.
When we stop asking it to be God.
The tree.
Can simply be a tree.
And in being fully itself,
It can become for us a place to encounter the divine,
Despite it not being.
The Divine.
Again,
The ordinary doesn't have to become extraordinary.
We need to become attentive enough to recognize the depth that's already there.
In that ordinariness.
And this is really.
.
.
A mystery that I would encourage you to hold.
Without trying to solve it.
God within everything.
And yet God beyond.
Everything.
Closer than close,
Greater than we can imagine.
Present.
Without being contained and beyond without being absent.
And if I could insert a little mind-blown emoji right now.
Or wood.
Because this is where the adventure is taking us now,
Toward a God who is both here and now.
And beyond here,
A God we can encounter everywhere and a God we can never reduce to anything we encounter.
Which means that every time we think we've finally understood God,
We have probably only discovered another doorway.
And I think that's exactly what God intended.
Because God is not the universe.
But God is.
And may grace,
Peace and love be with us today and always.
Until tomorrow,
Friends.
Peace be with you.
