Watching for God in the Ordinary

This post is by Norma Jean Powell, San Rafael First UMC

Psalm 63: 1-8 “My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;”

While we were in silent prayer during worship on the First Sunday of Lent, my eyes happened upon the deep purple fabric covering the worship table, the shiny material luminescent with sworls of light. In the dark, contemplative season of Lent, when we carefully drape our worship environment in purples and greys, the light of God’s love will find a way in. Perhaps the intent of using dark colors or of giving up a pleasure we love, or of adopting a special spiritual practice during lent is to encourage us to watch for the evidence of God’s presence in our lives, not just in this sanctuary but in the mundane, the ordinary, even the dark places. 

Early Japanese poets relied on a concept called “wabi”. Wabi conveys the beauty of the most ordinary circumstances and objects, so one might write of the steam rising from a cup of tea or a flower with it’s stem bent and muddied by the rain. The 17th century poet-master, Basho, wrote:
          spring rain –
          roof leak drizzling
          through a hanging wasps’ nest
Basho also wrote several poems in the last days of his life, even as he knew that his illness was final, finding peace in savoring the small sights and circumstances around him: birds flying against a cloud, a white flower with dust specks on it, autumn-dry fields.

The psalmist writes: “…for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.”

In these days of Lent I watch each day, even each moment, for the shadow of God’s wing spreading over me; watching for the small, the mundane, the ordinary that sings of God’s presence. Awakening in the early hours of the morning with much time before dawn, unable to sleep again, we often let the worries of our subconscious drive us to despair. But now the words of the psalmist remind me to spend that time praising God. And then I hear the owl that has taken up residence in the tree outside my bedroom calling, and I think again of the small wonders of creation; soon a peace settles over the room and sleep returns. Scent of plum blossoms, the moon reflected in the white blooming plum trees, the wind purring through the eucalyptus grove, crows screaming a warning of perceived danger, and robins exclaiming their delight at finding a few last holly berries, the dark shadow of evening creeping across the mountain. Each day when I enter the gifts God has given I sense the deep peace a satisfaction that the psalmist sings of, and the peace of the creator surrounds me as though I were sheltered under God’s wings.