Paying Attention

Mike Willock writes: In a recent worship service, Pastor Travis challenged us to pay attention. He preached on the story of Moses, who first saw and turned aside from tending his sheep to approach the burning bush out of curiosity and then he met God there.

In this modern era, with all the dings and screen prompts and calendar reminders competing for attention, we can easily miss or even dismiss signs of God’s presence in our lives.  I thought back more than 20 years to a Todd Hall workshop led by Rev. Belden Lane. He occasionally sat in the east transept at Second on a Sunday morning. Belden had us spend the hour after lunch looking for signs of God in nature. I found the first one close to the dining hall – a spray of flowers blooming in a decaying tree stump. Wandering farther afield, I only heard, but never saw, a deer moving through the brush a stone’s throw from the road. Two down, one to go, so I kept going farther on. Finally, walking back to the conference center along the entrance road with the hour nearly gone, my eye was caught by a flash of white in the dusty shoulder of the road. I bent down and saw that the white was a patch of tiny white flowers – each perfect bloom less than half the size of a little fingernail. They were growing in barren soil where no gardener would plant them and they were covered with dust from passing traffic, but they were beautiful for anyone who took the time to see. Thanks to Belden, I spent an hour and found three signs of God’s presence I have never forgotten.

Since then and with practice, I see signs of God’s presence all the time. Yesterday I saw and heard God in the faces and laughter and excitement of the children with their shoes off engaging in Pastor Pat’s sacred space. That was a bit of God’s holy ground. The week before God came in the form of Good Ground Pantry guests standing in a hard rain to receive their food, giving thanks that God got them up that morning, for the pantry and for the food. On a recent Saturday God was in the pantry food distribution, with Heather Cirre’s young sons Kevin and Bryan enthusiastically working with Vivian Darrell and Max Thomas to present the items we had available that day for each guest to make their choices. And God was in the prayers of our pantry guests, including thanksgiving for a successful surgery, for a son now off a ventilator, for a day with less pain, and a prayer for a son still missing after 20 years. All of these are voiced in a holy confidence that God is present, that God hears and answers prayer.

So, let’s pay attention. We know we need to watch where we are going, especially when walking across streets or when driving. We do that because we have been brought up and trained to watch what is going on around us. In much the same way we can train ourselves to be more sensitive to signs of God’s extraordinary presence in the ordinariness of our lives. Watch for it, listen for it, and most of all when we recognize it give thanks to God for it. When we do that we stand on holy ground, with or without our shoes.

God is good. All the time. Thank you, Lord.