Kirkepiscatoid

When the weather is good, I like to do my morning devotionals in my reclining lawn chair in the yard, in my "sacred space." Today was one of those cool, foggy "Fall is comin'" days in NE Missouri. There is something great about being just a little under-dressed for the weather but drinking hot coffee to counteract it in the early morning in my yard...(And ever since Leonardo told me he likes the way I think in this mode, I think of him now and then even though we have never met!)

Ok, so this morning, as I look out at the fog in the yard as the light breaks and I hear two owls hooting (living in the country is SOOOOOO cool sometimes) and I am reading my Psalm for the day. I have been working on a project and chatting with Wallace about it now and then...start with Psalm 150 and work my way backwards to the beginning. Do a little bit of Lectio Divina in that I simply read it, see what "jumps out", and reflect upon it, end with a collect from the BCP. I am slogging my way through Psalm 119, and breaking it up one section at a time because it's so friggin long. I'm on the "Heth" section today and v. 64 jumped out all over the place: “The earth, O Lord, is full of your love; instruct me in your statutes.”

I was out there a little before 6 a.m., looking out at the fog towards the east as the morning light started gearing up, and hearing those owls. Just sat, and drank my coffee and let my mind sit still. This is going to sound weird, but I normally feel the “gears in my head running"; sometimes, though there are special moments in the middle of my contemplation where the gears just sort of stand still. Those "gears standing still" moments are fleeting, but highly addictive.

Then, two words popped in my head that I hadn’t thought of for a long time: Immanence and transcendence.

These words used to be “just words” to me. Big “religious words” that I just rolled my eyes and went “Yeah, yeah, ok.”

Then I got hit with the big “DUH!” moment. Reading my psalm, in the dawning light, in the fog, hearing the owls, getting the “oh, wow this is cool” moment and connecting the moment with “The earth, O Lord, is full of your love”....this is the meaning of “immanence.” The presence of God is present with me, omnipresent, and present in his creation all at once.

Suddenly lots of things made sense...why my sacred spot in the yard is sacred...why I felt tremendously at peace working in the garden at church with my co-vestry member C. yesterday (at lunch, he and I were talking about this peaceful co-experience we seem to get working in the yard together)...it was so damn intense. (Of course afterwards, I had to have my moment of straightening up, looking around to be sure it was just me and the dogs out there, and thought, “What the hell just happened????”)

But oh, wow, THAT’s what immanence is...and that’s how it is hooked to transcendence. For about 60 seconds I was transcended to a place where it was literally “joyfully painful” to sit there, and it was so much that way I could only sit there for no more than a minute before I had to “back out of it” and “catch myself” and bluster a little to myself in my “What the hell happened?” way.

The short answer is, "I don't know what the hell happened but I sure as hell like it!"