During hubbub of the holidays, pause to savor the moments that matter.
In the Greek language of the ancient New Testament, Jesus describes God as the “pneuma,” a word that can variously mean the wind that blows across the grass, the air we breathe or the divine spirit that animates us.
What he seemed to be saying is that God—as invisible as the air—is akin to the air in this way, too: simultaneously inside us, outside us, all around us and holding everything together. Wherever we are, God is there. Whatever we’re looking at, the living God is somehow in it, touching it, animating it.
This idea, presented in differing packages and vocabularies, permeates various religions, spiritual disciplines and philosophical schools. It says a transcendent consciousness exists everywhere: in you, in me, in your Persian cat or rose bushes. God is omnipresent. Everything is part of God’s creation; everything buzzes with God’s presence.
I point this out because too often we humans, allegedly the highest order of sentient beings on Earth, bustle through life oblivious to the divinity surrounding us. At no time is this obliviousness truer than during the holiday season, when we’re supposed to be offering praises to the Lord but more often are poleaxed by shopping, cooking and scurrying from one noisy party to the next.
We’d do well to make a practice of stopping to look around us and breathe in the living God. We’d do well to stay aware of the glory.
The Roman Catholic contemplative Richard Rohr talked about this dilemma recently in a devotion titled, “Being Present to the Presence of God,” adapted from one of his sermons.
“The presence of God is infinite, everywhere, always, and forever. You cannot not be in the presence of God. There’s no other place to be,” Rohr wrote. “But here’s the problem—we’re almost always somewhere else. We are either reprocessing the past or worrying about the future.”
It’s better to live in the moment, to make ourselves present to divine mysteries.
“When we’re present, we will experience the Presence,” Rohr said.
This idea, of being genuinely aware, bears much in common with Buddhism, as Rohr pointed out. He cited Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Buddhist monk and international teacher, who said:
“All that we are looking for in life—all the happiness, contentment, and peace of mind—is right here in the present moment. … Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, pause from time to time and relax your mind. … Everything you ever wanted is right here in this present moment of awareness.”
Coincidentally, as I was considering all this again, my wife Liz forwarded me an article called “The Conscious Universe,” by Joe Zadeh, from the journal Noema.
The lengthy article covered a lot of ground, but the gist (to me, at least) was that contemporary scientists and philosophers are showing a renewed interest in an ancient concept called panpsychism. A short list of those who held panpsychist beliefs includes Plato, Aristotle, St. Francis of Assisi and William James.
Zadeh explained: “Derived from the Greek words pan (‘all’) and psyche (‘soul’ or ‘mind’), panpsychism is the idea that consciousness — perhaps the most mysterious phenomenon we have yet come across — is not unique to the most complex organisms; it pervades the entire universe and is a fundamental feature of reality.”
It’s turning out that even the parts of the world we’ve long considered inanimate are both alive and, as one modern-day philosopher expressed it, awake.
For instance, Zadeh said, scientists have discovered “the playfulness and creativity of cephalopods, the intelligent communication between fungi and the interspecies sharing economy in forests. Honeybees recognize faces, use tools, make collective decisions, dance to communicate and appear to understand higher-order concepts like zero. Plants can feel you touching them. … (We) are living on a vastly conscious planet.”
My summation: the world is a marvel, and marvelous to behold, if we’ll behold it with caring attention. The God of life has made everything alive and shimmering with divinity. God’s universe reflects him at every turn.
I’ve resolved that in the hubbub of the coming weeks I’ll remain truly mindful for once.
I want to find moments every day to simply stop, go silent, breathe in and out, then gaze attentively on the holiday decorations before me, or the chattering grandchildren, or a brilliant winter sunset, or even a well-set table—whatever’s before me—and see there the presence of the Lord and the mysteries of his universe.
Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.