A Sister Reflects - Reflexión de una Hermana



The Mysticism of Ordinary Life
"After the rain" by fotologic | Flickr CC BY 2.0

Developing our relationship with God requires the skill of listening to God in all the ways that God is present to us: in the wonders of nature, in our daily human experience, in sacred scriptures and preeminently in Jesus Christ. In what has been called the “mysticism of ordinary life,” we learn to recognize and name the grace we experience day to day. 

One of my favorite mediums for God’s life-giving presence is the beauty of nature. God has a way of luring me out of myself into the sensuous beauty of nature manifest in the exquisite scenery spanning from coast to coast. God is that dynamic, unitive and life-giving presence that permeates all creation and desires to draw us into communion with the divine. Thomas Merton writes of how he listens for God’s voice in the comforting speech the rain makes at night. He says,

“What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone,
in the forest, at night, cherished by this 
wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech,
the most comforting speech in the world,
the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges,
and the talk of the watercourses 
everywhere in the hollows!
Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it.
It will talk as long as it wants, this rain.
As long as it talks I am going to listen.”* 

The God of many names, speaks to us continuously in the elemental language of water, fire, wind, and earth. How do you experience the presence of God in ordinary life?

Blessings,
Sister Sara

 

*Thomas MERTON, in Elizabeth ROBERTS—Elias AMIDON (eds.), Earth Prayers from Around the World (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991) 165.



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Avatar  Judy Sage 7 years ago

The presence of God in my ordinary life is the people whom I listen to and learn things about life I might never have known . It's definitely relationships with peoplle. It's noticing them even if we don't talk. Its my being a person listened to or noticed passing by. Everyday it ends with crawling in bed at night tired and out of energy. It's saying a few prayers for some of them as my head hits that pillow. It's falling asleep ,knowing that God is watching over me. It's hoping that some of the people from that day pray too.



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