"Making Meaning"
Matthew 6: 25-33
First Presbyterian Church
Lori Rothfus, Weaver of Wonder
June 3, 2007
Spring
Worship at
Good morning.....
Coming
here to speak at Audubon obviously made me think about topics on nature.
I discovered that topics such as “The Oneness of Everything”, “The
Interconnectedness of Life” and the “Earth as Sacred” have all been
discussed in sermons in the past at First Presbyterian Church and I find it very
inspiring to know such subjects are being explored here.
Having a
progressive church, like this, here in
In a
sermon by Judith Brain in
I find
this to be an interesting question because I am going to tell you that I believe
we live IN God all the time...so, then, I might say ALL experiences are
direct experiences of God. BUT I
also like the paradox: we can be separate and one with God at the same time.
Like individual drops of water that make up the ocean.
They are separate and one together. Or
like being IN a marriage all the time but knowing there are still moments we do
come intimately face to face with our partner as a direct experience.
As I read
Judith's question, I think we all know what she is asking.
Judith is asking, “When have we known, without a shadow of a doubt,
that the presence of God is near. When
do we know God surrounds us in a vivid, lucid way that leaves us with a sense of
awe and wonder?” Judith reports
the answers to her question come in many forms – a near death experience, in a
dream, during the birth of a child....BUT the answer people give most often is
“I had a direct experience of God in NATURE.”
Judith also reported that no one has ever answered “I had a direct
experience with God IN Church” but I am sure that is because she never ask
anyone here at First Pres.
Acts17:
24-25 tells us “the God who made the world and all that is in it does not
dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, rather it is He who gives to all life
and breath, and everything else.” I
interpret this verse to mean God is alive in the natural world and in our daily
living of life – AND NOT IN what can be the limiting walls of buildings
and stagnant creeds.
When I
think of God dwelling in the natural world I imagine nature as a direct
manifestation of the book of creation...a communication system that is available
to us when we choose to engage it and listen to it.
Nature has a way of teaching us about our bodies, our senses, our life
here on Earth. Nature offers
insights, metaphors, lessons, and wisdoms when we chose to see the natural world
as a living companion rather than a commodity.
The
microcosmic and macrocosmic aspects throughout the universe are constantly
awakening and evolving within themselves – and I believe our awareness of this
vast and unending revelation, along with our understanding of the Oneness puts
us in direct and intimate contact with God as Spirit and God as Creator.
Someone
might ask, “Why doesn't God make it easier to find God?”
Or “If God is so great why can't we see him?”
My answer is - God really has made it abundantly easy and God never needs
to be found. God is not hiding.
God has revealed itself across the cosmos in an infinite display of
diversity and unique expression within the Oneness.
I do wonder sometimes if we have created a God in our image and if our
image is too small – our focus too narrow to see the truths before us.
The
Church Father Augustine said, “Some people, in order to discover God, read
books. BUT there is a great
book: the very appearance of created things.
Look above you, look below you, note it, read it. God
whom you want to discover never wrote that book with ink: instead he set before
your eyes the things he has made. Can
you ask for a louder voice than that?”
God is
all around us in plain sight – in the person next to you, in an act of
kindness, in the tiniest bird, in the stars above.
We are always “in relationship” with God through our living of
life...and like any relationship, we can and must make quiet times to be
more intimate with God, to communicate more deeply and to come face to face with
the Divine.
I would
like to tell you about an intimate and direct experience I had when I was about
6 years old. I spent a tremendous
amount of time alone in nature during my childhood and one day I found myself
laying sprawled out on a favorite rock nestled in the creek bed behind my
grandparent’s home. I was
listening to the moving waters for a long time watching the sunlight bursting
from behind the canopy of maple leaves as they flickered in the breeze.
Suddenly the whole world seemed to slow down and my senses became alert
and focused. I was not alone and I
felt expectant and filled with life. My
eyes focused on the pinpoint of light as it flickered and sparkled through the
leaves...and it felt as if the light was speaking to me - not with
words...but to a deeper wordless part of me.
I was aware of a great vastness and an “understanding” of something
larger than myself. I did not feel
intimidated however, but rather embraced and held.
I understood my connectedness to all things.
I was not an observer but an intricate part of the whole and I was filled
with wonder. That moment engaged me
more deeply in life. That moment has
never left me, and in spite of painful and negative experiences in life and in
church, I have maintained an allegiance to this experience of God as Spirit and
God as the Creator of all things.
Psalm
19:1-4 says “The heavens are telling the glory of God; the firmament
proclaims God's handiwork. Day to
day pours forth speech and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard, yet
their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the
world.”
I believe
they do. There were no words
when I was 6; “there are no words throughout nature and yet wisdom is declared
across the world.”
What a
glorious understanding - that some types of knowledge and wisdom do not come
from words or books but rather from creation herself. They
come from being in and of the world around us, from being attentive and
available to receive. Wisdom comes
from interacting with life and being IN love with life.
A verse
often quoted by Tom from the seventeenth chapter of Acts declares, “In God
we live and move and have our being.”
In a sense, we are continuing to add pages to the wordless book of
creation: making meaning through our living of it.
Creation is forever engaging and responding to itself and we are
infinitely immersed within it, within God.
Humans
are forever seeing and attributing meaning to aspects of the world and our life
experiences. We may see a dark sky
and equate it to our sadness or we may observe a bee and contemplate our own
busy-ness. Are we just making-up
meaning? Or are we Making meaning
– making life meaningful by attending to details and simply opening up to the
cosmic possibilities, lessons and connections that bind us every day?
Another childhood memory I recall was a sunny afternoon when I followed a lone grasshopper around for several hours. I lost track of time and He taught me many lessons. Lessons about back-tracking, waiting, celebrating, getting stuck, being small and being beautiful. In the slow, attentive and quiet pace of that afternoon did the grasshopper and I “make meaning” through our intimate time together?
Was I
making myself available to a deeper relationship with God as I listened intently
to the grasshopper in quiet abandon that day?
There is
a Native Ute Prayer that speaks to the art of Making Meaning through the
natural world experience: it
reads...in part:
“Earth Teach me stillness as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me courage as the tree which stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation as the ant which crawls on the
ground.
Earth teach me freedom as the eagle which soars in the
sky....”
Medieval
mystic, Meister Eckhart, proclaimed, “Apprehend God in all things, for God
is in all things. Every single
creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of
God.” EVERY CREATURE IS A WORD
OF GOD.
Our
sciences are well on their way to supporting the idea that everything is
connected and more recently Harvard scientists say that every thing is made of
light, even solid matter AND this light contains information.
This makes me think about the light I witnessed when I was six.
Then I consider - what if our insights in nature and in life are not just
about metaphors but about actually communicating with the basic truths and
building blocks of the universe?
Is information really transmitted in a wordless way that guides us?
Can we access through silence and solitude, the word of God from nature
by our attention to it and through our willingness to make meaning with it?
Can we learn this Divine language, not only as scientists, but as seekers
and followers of Christ?
Jesus is
a wonderful role model to teach us about making time for intimate and
direct experiences of God in nature and in life.
He was also a master at making
meaning out of ordinary things and common practices.
His parables clearly reveal this. Jesus
went into nature and when he returned he brought with him the deeper meanings to
planting seeds, casting fish nets and breaking bread.
He knew the wisdom of God could be more easily heard in nature.
He sought solitude and contemplation in wild places whenever he needed to
be replenished, whenever he felt called from his own truth by others, whenever
he needed to listen to God and renew his purpose.
We may
resist going into nature and being attentive to it for the same reasons we avoid
other relationships and activities- it can serve as a mirror and requires energy
from us to accomplish. When we are
immersed in Nature we are also stripped of our job titles, societal expectations
and status, devoid of our bank accounts and our social circles.
We stand before the vast expanse naked and nameless, made equal and
common and small, wondering if we really have anything of value to offer.
And, of course we do. We have our own light within us, encoded with our own unique knowledge and our gifts for the world. BUT Nature reminds us of our vulnerability, of the unpredictable, the inevitability of change, of the messy, the dirty, the dark and the light, the unknown, the uncertain, the impermanence of it all, and the harsh cycles of life and death. Humans have tried to predict, determine, control, confine, and manipulate nature all in an attempt to feel safe - but safety it is only an illusion.
Nature
reflects that life is not a straight line, nor only black and white and,
although there are twists and turns, it is all leading somewhere within God, to
a place we simultaneously may fear we will be consumed.
We come face to face with our inner wildness, an intimate place, a place
we often run from, but a place we must visit if we are to live fully and
passionately.
Helen
Keller is quoted as saying, “Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole
experience it. Avoiding danger is no
safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the
presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”
Being open-hearted in our deepest moments and most intimate relationships
requires us to risk: to risk losing something of ourselves, even if it is only
our fear or an outdated belief, to risk being hurt, if what we love and cling to
will be taken away without our understanding.
And to risk being found.
As Helen
Keller instructs, “to keep our faces toward change in the presence of fate is
strength undefeatable.” To hold
all the emotions and the dualities and the paradoxes and the oneness that
contains them can surely invoke fear and reverence.
AND it requires great courage and strength to face our direct experiences
of God, to develop an intimate relationship with life, to make meaning and to
answer God's call, as Jesus did, in our own lives.
When we decide to follow Jesus's example -
to seek direct experiences of God,
to make meaning in the world out of the ordinary,
to listen attentively in the solitude of wild places, with courage,
we can
then feel the full range of emotions birthed in life, with our hearts open and
all our “stuff” laid bare, without expectations.
We can then allow the Oneness to feed our spirits, empower our bodies and
renew our purpose and ministry in life. We
can engage in the “Daring Adventure” that Helen Keller imagined.
We can add our own page to the inkless book of creation .
We can “make life meaningful” and live our days within the wordless
word of God - in awe and in wonder.
Amen.