My 5-year old daughter is a force of nature.
She has this wild, frenetic energy that seems to propel her effortlessly through her young life. At times that unpredictable combustion can be a distinct challenge for a parent, but most times I find myself sitting back and just marveling at it all; the way her mind dances freely to music written just for her.
Last night as a massive evening thunderstorm descended upon our front yard, I invited her out onto the porch to sit with me. Knowing her usual fear of such things, I was surprised when she accepted my invitation, and even more when she wanted to linger there. For the next ninety minutes we spent a holy moment together in a rocking chair beneath the weather.
People often ask me where I experience God, when I feel certain of something that I cannot see or prove. The older I get and the further I walk down this road of faith, the more I discover that evidence outside of any religious trappings or self-designated consecrated spaces. Lately I find this assurance in the sacred of my ordinary, where it requires no fanfare or summoning or conjuring up but simply my awareness of it.
In fact, today I find that I most experience God’s presence, in those moments when I feel a very specific absence.
As I suspect is true of many people, (maybe it is true of you too), much of my existence is usually about effort; about the things I do, the titles I earn, the praise I merit, the image I maintain, the mistakes I avoid. Life and love and faith all begin to feel like a product I manufacture, something I am in constant, exhausting, fervent maintenance of. This often makes the spiritual journey one of unnecessary anxiety and heaviness.
But it is in those rare moments when I feel it all disappear; all the work and the striving and the be good enough, do well enough perfection pressure, that peace descends fully. When that happens, I am taken by surprise to find the ever churning waters of ambition and competition stilled, and I can really rest with all of my weight surrendered to gravity.
These are rare occasions, but I notice how different I am when they happen.
As my daughter sat upon my lap there in the forceful, steady din of the rain interrupted by thunderclaps, her head resting in the crook of my arm, I saw that wonderful absence of effort in her. I felt the ease of her spirit surrounded by the storm yet safe in my embrace. I saw the security that not only trumped the circumstances, but redeemed them. I watched her dancing mind unfettered by care.
This is when the reality of God comes to me, when I too realize that I am held firmly and delighted in completely, when I am received in whatever condition I may be in and able to breathe easily in it.
In those moments, my worth and my joy are not dependent upon my work or upon the weather.
Then, I once more start to hear that music that is written only for me, and my mind dances again.
