Finding God in the Ordinary

I believe and experience that God is available to me in all sorts of things.

Most of my experiences are not the kind where the hairs rise on the back of my neck, or where I am flooded over with joy.  Rather, they are ordinary experiences of feeling deeply alive. 

 I see/experience/know God in my daughters. In the push and pull of wills and the various times when I realize "this is bigger than me."  When taking a bath and Junia says to me, "I love you even when you yell at me." In that moment I realize something about God's grace.

I see/experience/know Her (God) in the smell of seawater.  Seriously, almost every morning that I go to work and smell the water as I board the boat I am reminded of my own vitality. The smell overwhelms me with beauty. It reminds me to look up, be awake, and fundamentally to be alive.  That is God.

I see/experience/know Her in the way that the death of my father 9 years ago changed the course of my life in many ways but also in the way that it has made me wise.  Because of my loss I am wiser, kinder, and more present to the fleeting reality of life. (Sure I would give it up in a heartbeat to have my Dad back) Fundamentally, I have been part of the grace that grief can facilitate. That is God.

I see/experience/know Her in the physical intimacy I share with my family.  The touch of sticky kids hands or the resting and exploration of rich love making is a reminder that my expierence of God is not something for my soul or some abstract spirit. But God is wrapped up with my bodily experiences of being a human and an animal.  I am created in the image and likeness of God- in my body.  This is God.

In so many rich and wonderful ways I encounter God, and these are not magic.  These are the stuff of ordinary life. This is about: smells, and smiles, baths, sadness touch.  She, for me, is not experienced in the tremendous high of a retreat, or silent withdrawl of the contemplative life.  For me, as a parent and partner, I have no choice but to see God in the here and the now in the kids and in the chaos or else I will not see God at all.  This is the choice I make, to be alive and awake to God in the here and now.