God is in the details

When I was younger, I had this inclination that God had to be "experienced" as an emotional state...as ectasy.  This led me to more charismatic forms of religious expression.  With a high school friend, I remember praying speaking in tongues.  To think of God displaying Himself (or Herself) in the mundane never occurred to me.

Now, in the midst of middle-age, a bit of wisdom (hopefully) has crept into my thinking, and it has become more clear to me that God is more present in the mundane and ordinary events of day-to-day living than in any elicited ectasy.  The problem is that we don't recognize it.  God is invisible to most of us, because we are too worried about details that we think God doesn't care about.

But Jesus says in Matthew 6:25-33 that we are not to worry about the details of day-to-day living...the clothing we wear, the food we wear, and more.  Hard to believe and accept in times of financial distress, tight budgets, increasing health care costs, political bickering that favors the elite and wealthy...how can we NOT be worried about tomorrow?  But that's the point; God IS in the details...if we attend to even the smallest things in our lives as embodying the essence, the loving care of God, He helps us notice how often He really is there for us.

That's been my experience, anyway.  Call me a "Pollyanna"...I prefer to be called a believer.  Now just remind me of that the next time I start grumbling about the details...tomorrow!

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A few years back, we were at a resort near San Antonio...the weather and surroundings were beautiful and inspired the following "list" poem (one of many of my unfinished poems that hasn't yet been christened with a title!):

Lord, I feel Your presence in the details:
the smell of this morning's breath,
  so crisp and fresh one can almost hear it.
and tiny tufts of grassy growth embedded
  in the cracked bark of the Live Oak tree.
The feathers of a hedge's foliage,
   unnoticed by most;
the shivery sharp needles on a prickly pear, 
  each one daring me to touch it and feel its power.
The passage of wasp from leaf to leaf in search of
  bloom that isn't there.
The falling of a tiny leaf along with its sisters
  to their scattered fate atop the wooden porch.
The pansy faces gazing from the flower bed.
Tiny specifics reveal the Presence of a God
  too large, too loving, too lavish,
 to be contained in generalities.