The Internal Change

During this season of reflecting on ten years of retirement which involved exchanging life centered around the sanctuary for life immersed in the creation, it has been easy to list the external changes.  At first glance it might seem that the significant changes have all been external, but such is simply not the truth.  The greatest and most significant change is the one not observed by the human eye, the one mostly invisible, and the one which is so life changing it would register off the scale of any seismic scale. 

The most significant change is one that is internal.  Hindsight enables me to see what were once present moments now a part of the past.  Even before I was aware of what was happening, there was an inner response to the reality that the God who had always revealed Himself through the church and its work was now going to reveal Himself in significant ways through the creation which surrounded me.  A recent reading about Celtic spirituality spoke of saints from that tradition who believed that there were two books through which God spoke.  One was the Holy Word and the other was the creation.

This Celtic theological viewpoint came only a few years ago in this retirement season, but it seemed to affirm what was growing inside of me without a name.  As I look back over the years since I stood behind the pulpit every Sunday, I am aware of how there has been this growing awareness of God making Himself known through the most ordinary things of creation which are actually not ordinary at all, but powerfully profound.  As the awareness that God reveals Himself in everything continues to grow, there is also growing a deeper understanding that we are always in the presence of God and never so far away that we cannot hear or see signs of holy presence.