Three little words. God is here. These words fell upon my mind in a moment of anxiety, an instance of twisted panic. I'm thinking of myself more and more as a mystic of late. I am not interested in dogma, rhetoric, rules, propaganda, convention, who's right, who's wrong, or buildings erected with human hands to worship, honor, commemorate, or cage whatever infinitesimal grasp we may have on the transcendent. Even the basic issue of morality is of less and less interest to me. What I am interested in is wonder. If the concept of God is of any use to us at all, I believe it is first and foremost as a source not of fear, or judgment, but of profound awe and wonder. It seems I am not alone in this particular belief. Buechner writes:
"At its heart, I think, religion is mystical. Moses with his flocks in Midian, Buddha under the Bo tree, Jesus up to his knees in the waters of Jordan...Religion as institution, as ethics, as dogma, as social action--all of this comes later and in the long run maybe counts for less. Religions start, as Frost said poems do, with a lump in the throat, to put it mildly, or with the bush going up in flames, the rain of flowers, the dove coming down out of the sky. As for the man in the street, any street, wherever his own religion is a matter of more than custom, it is likely to be because, however dimly, a doorway opened in the air once to him too, a word was spoken, and, however shakily, he responded" (The Alphabet of Grace, pp. 74-75).
More and more, I experience God not in the loud, bombastic, or angular drama that has (somehow) come to be associated with a "religious experience", but as a blushing sense of awe that lives behind my eyes, and kisses every fragile shaft of light that finds its way through my gaze. And that's when I know. God is here. Now. In me. In you. Between us. (S)He is the words you speak that dance in my ears. God is this blessed space, this sacred fellowship, this succulent communion with breath and being. God is in our mouths, in our hands, in our beds, in our books, in our dreams. God is in the shaking laughter and the ruthless tears that wrack my body and leave me limp and trembling on the floor. God is in our grieving and our most terrible secrets. God is here. Now.
And somehow, in some mysterious way, these three little words make every passing moment something new: a cause for joy, a cause for celebration, a cause for the most humbling and disarming sense of wonder we have ever dared to dream of. A "Hello" becomes miracle, an "I love you" the axis of the universe itself, an "I'm sorry" a temple of grace, an "I remember" the rumbling of earth's tempestuous tectonic plates beneath our weary feet. What was once small and insignificant suddenly becomes not only meaningful, but crucial, essential, utterly indispensable, the entire point, the crux of this whole misshapen plot. I fall to my knees and kiss the earth beneath me with gratitude, a smile upon my lips and a burning in my eyes.
As I lay reclined in the dentist's chair, or eat dinner across from a beautiful woman, or smell her perfume for days after she is gone, or watch a movie, or sit quietly on the couch listening to the silence, or read a note from a friend, or lose myself in the making of music, or feel my heart begin to race with anxiousness and fear, I covet this secret. I wrap myself in it like a tender breeze on a warm night. God is here. Oh yes, friends. Believe it. God is here.
