From our Book Club reading, Everywhere Present, Chapter 6, we read,
“The shape of the universe in the classical Christian understanding encompasses a world in which everything is capable of referring beyond itself and outside of itself. Everything becomes a doorway and a window, a means in the participation in the depths of reality…St. Anthony the Great was once asked by a philosopher where his books were. He replied, ‘My book, O philosopher, is the world.’”
When we look around us and within us, with the eyes of faith and the illumination of the Holy Spirit, we can see that all of the created order reveals the imprint of its Maker. God created all things and He calls them “good” or “very good,” in our case. Of course, “no one is Good, but the Father,” according to Jesus. Thus, all relative goods find their meaning in the Absolute Good, who is God, the Creator. What this means for us is that when we look at creation, all of it, the goodness of God is present. In this way, the world around us and within us reveals God because God can be found in everything.
How to make this tangible in your life: 1. Pray always and God will be found everywhere you are. 2. Meditate on the goodness and even the evil in the world and in yourself. This will show us God and where God is not (evil). He uses evil for our good to teach us what to avoid. Evil is not a thing (so no contradiction); it is the absence or corruption of a thing. This is why God is not found in it. It is not a creation, but a disfiguration. 3. Ask, what such and such a thing reveals about God. I was once sitting in prayer, ducks flew by quacking, and I recalled the angels are singing the glories of God in heaven. Every once and a while our greater reality just kicks in and tells us the deeper meaning of the universe.
Fr. Nathan Symeon
Sunday, October 10 –
