OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Finding God
“I know plenty of people who find God most reliably in books, in buildings, and even in other people. I have found God in all of these places too, but the most reliable meeting place for me has always been creation. Since I first became aware of the Divine Presence in that lit-up field in Kansas, I have known where to go when my own flame is guttering. To lie with my back flat on the fragrant ground is to receive a transfusion of the same power that makes the green blade rise. To remember that I am dirt and to dirt I shall return is to be given my life back again, if only for one present moment at a time. Where other people see acreage, timber, soil, and river frontage, I see God’s body, or at least as much of it as I am able to see. In the only wisdom I have at my disposal, the Creator does not live apart from creation but spans and suffuses it. When I take a breath, God’s Holy Spirit enters me. When a cricket speaks to me, I talk back. Like everything else on earth, I am an embodied soul, who leaps to life when I recognize my kin. If this makes me a pagan, then I am a grateful one.”
- Barbara Brown Taylor
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OPreach 
I am amazed to be reading these words, as I wrote in my journal along very similar lines this morning. I have a great love of, and connection with nature, and I had been told that this was ‘pagan’. I wrote: “Pagan’ is just a label, applied by humans. The Spirit of the Eternal One, of God, The Infinite, runs through and illuminates all creation, including Nature and of course, ourselves.” Thank you for the confirmation.