Being the Beloved - A Monthly Blog from CFDM Northwest
By Gwen Shipley
Psalm 42:2-3, 11
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior, and my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
One of the great pleasures of this season is picking up the phone and hearing our three-year-old great grandson ask, "Nana, where aahhr you?" And before I can answer, he continues, "Can we come to your house?" He wears "all his feels" out in the open. I wonder if the psalm writer is expressing a similar longing for the loving connection with his God that our "little" finds in the presence of his papa and me.
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
Meaningful conversation springs from a timely question, as the spiritual director knows, but it is now cliché for podcast guests to routinely begin answers with, "That's such a great question." In this case, the question "the people" ask in Psalm 42 seems to be taunting, not timely. Turns out though, it is a great one we can add to those the writer is already asking:
When can I go and meet God?
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why, my soul, are you so disturbed within me?
Why have You, God, forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning, oppressed?
Indeed, Where aahhr You?
In this extended time of interruptions to our cultural sensibilities, many are asking the same questions.
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?
“Why not,” we might ask, cynicism brewing?! Disrupted work schedules, family celebrations, illness and death, even weather anomalies. Add that we bring along any “pre-existing conditions--addictions, grief, unmet needs… Hopes of "normalcy" have been raised and dashed, until the sliver-thin window of trust which opens between "hope yet again" and "hope is too painful" is no wider than a fingernail moon.
For those on spiritual pilgrimage, this season occurs within a standing invitation to grow in intimate relationship with One whose fullness is perceived even beyond the physical senses. "It is a lonely place in a lonely process," writes Janet Hagberg describing "the Wall experience" in The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith. *
Thus, some of us revert to an earlier time when God felt more certain. Others lean into the fear that invites faith. Still others may get stuck, feeling unable to respond at all.
Put your hope in God
“Where is your God?” they ask. Great question. Where, indeed?
What if God is present in all things, already and always at work?
What if God simply is? Here, now? Closer than our breath?
If God is Love, wherever Love is being expressed, there is God—the kind that looks like Jesus. Who doesn’t long to experience Love like that?
Where aahhr you?
It is accepted as fact that good things await at Nana and Papa’s house, whatever may be the condition in which the small people arrive. God, too, welcomes us, The Beloved, as we are—whether in perfect form or bringing our need-a-nap-hungry-wired selves.
We are invited to awaken to this Love, the Spirit’s presence and action in daily life. It is by following our desire, by asking “Where IS my God?” that we find the God who is already seeking us. (Gerald May).
Where is your God? Now that’s a great question.
Practices of spiritual direction, lectio divina, examen, centering prayer, solitude, community, etc. can help us in this awakening. If these are new to you or you are looking for others with whom to participate, contact Katrina or Mona through the website.
What books, media, activities are nurturing your heart, soul, mind, strength in this season as we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves? Post in the comments below or hop on over to our Facebook page and share with one another.