Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

Our Pastor

Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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The Spiritual Life

May 2002

Looking for God With Ordinary Eyes

By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

I have been feeling a bit down. Not bad mind you, but not glowing with joy either. And the trouble is that I think most of the time, joy really ought to be where my head is at. Not always happy, but a sustaining inner joy that makes dealing with the painful stuff (like breaking a tooth) just something you do, not an inner crisis. But I remembered joy tonight with the help of a pair of small feet. I was in my office going through my huge stack of music CD's looking for a particular one we needed for Choir practice when I heard someone in Gabrielle's office, (when someone is in the outer office I can't see them if I am over next to the boom box with the CD's). I said, "hello?" Then I heard the door handle to the inner office jiggle and the sound of running feet and a most distinctive Lilly Jones sounding giggle. Now some of the young ones like to try and play silly jokes on me, but Lilly has never been one of those. I am curious; I stop scanning disks and look around the corner. On the door handle is a homemade red construction paper funnel with a handle of paper filled with candy hanging on the door handle. It was a May Basket. I stared at it for what must have been a whole minute. Then glanced back at the stacks of CD's and saw the disk I had been looking for all week. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that it should just show up in front of me. Isn't that what is supposed to happen when you are in the presence of the grace of God? I don't think Lilly knew God was asking her to be an angel, we almost never know when we are doing the Great Work, but she did a very good job.

Then, because God is an abundant lover, it happened twice more. Deb Merriweather and her girls gave May Baskets to all the children in Bell Choir and also to me, and Colleen Wickham shared baskets with her Children's choir, and one of the children shared a cheese popcorn with me. (I sure tasted good, I had kind of forgotten to eat dinner). Are you surprised that I see God talking through these acts of love? Where do you expect to see the hand of God or feel the touch of the breath of God on your cheek? If God is intimately involved with everything in God's universe, then God's touch must be part of that too. That is part of what the word "incarnate" means, "in the world" or "in flesh", and when we say that Jesus was God incarnate, we are saying a pretty powerful thing. God is all around us, and involved with us. So why is it so darn hard to hear God or feel God's touch?

And I agree, sometimes it really is hard. I think part of the reason is we have been set up by our culture and entertainment media to look in the wrong places. We expect special light shows, Star Wars level special effects and probably a theatrical sound track. Last week Gina Hatcher's dogs all got out of the back yard. It was a panic, my mom and dad were driving around looking for them and her daughter Chalee was also out looking. Finally Gina had given up and was home crying, when something told Chalee to go to the cemetery, and there they were, all together "like a little train, with the big dog in front and the two little ones trailing along behind". She didn't hear words, but she got told all the same and she believes it was God. And I believe God cares about our pets as much as we do. God cares about everything in creation.

But that feeling of being told, I know what that feels like. It has never been as clear as words, like some people tell me they get, but I know I have been told. I was walking around with the police and a friend of mine shinning flashlights into the dark and going through back yards. The helicopter was no help, but we were getting desperate. The person had taken a whole bottle of pills that should have killed a human in around 30 to 60 minutes and we had been looking for over an hour. We had no idea where the person had run off too. I was slowly walking, I felt so very heavy, it was like wading through mud. My friend was talking to me, and it was hard to pay attention, when suddenly I stopped. He kept walking for a few feet before he noticed and turned back. He was asking me what was wrong, but I couldn't really hear him anymore. Suddenly I knew where to go, and walking very fast I made the two blocks in record time. I had my cell phone out and the ambulance was there taking the person away before the police even knew that the person had been found. I did not get words, but I knew where to go. My friend usually walks much faster than I, but had to run to catch up. At least I can recognize it when God yells. But if I had expected God to talk like we see in movies, there would have had to be fire and choirs of Angels and billowing clouds and lightning. The first step to hearing God is to let go of telling God how you want God to talk.

Of course we are not so arrogant on purpose, we just picked up these false images from our culture that doesn't really believe God talks anyway, so it makes up something that looks good. And how God talks will to a large extent depend on what you are willing to hear.

A few weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see a rare face in worship. I asked him what inspired him to bring us the gift of his company and he said he got the "big voice again." I was a bit stunned, that is a pretty rare thing. I asked what God said, and he replied he didn't really understand it, all he kept getting was, "love yah". So he figured he ought to go to church. In my wildest dreams I have never thought of God using that kind of language, but the more I thought about it, the more it fit that person. That is the kind of language he uses in the secret, private and deep parts of himself when he talks to himself. In learning to listen to myself I have noticed that I think with a British accent and feel happy with an Irish one and a few others for different emotions. :) (Learning to listen to your own thoughts is one of the ways to hear God speaking).

But the truly important part is the totally normal way in which God is suddenly visible in my life and the lives of all these around me. If I am going to walk in joy, or as our Native American brother and sisters say, "Walk in beauty" I am going to have to let go of looking for God only in the strange and unearthly and be open to God in the most ordinary and everyday.

"Westerners, including most Christians, act as if God is largely unconcerned with day-to-day affairs. Though our doctrinal statements speak of [God's] sustaining activity, we seem to assume that [God] simply set the universe going and has left it to continue on its own power, operating according to "natural laws" . . . Occasionally we interpret something that happens as a miracle, but by definition we see such an act as a matter of God's interference in normalcy. This seems to contrast with Jesus' view that such acts ought to be considered normal in the kingdom of God." Charles H. Kraft - Christianity With Power, p. 29.

Sisters and brothers, please share with me when you find God in your life speaking and helping you. Our joy, and that sense of being loved and cared for is magnified when you share it. If we all help each other look, we really can see God everywhere in our everyday lives.

Most especially thank you to all of you who have shared your stories with me. They really do help me remember my true self when I am feeling, "a bit down." May God Bless you and hold you close in love.
Your brother-in-Christ, Reverend Michael Lee Burgess.

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