The "Senses" of Knowing God

There are a lot of emotions that have been coursing their way through me these last two weeks.  With my close friends, I’ve been contemplating the experiences of life, death of loved ones, servanthood, and “knowing God”. Certain events occur in my life that trigger these times of thinking. I suppose this is one of those times.

I know, heavy topic(s) for this edition of the Second Strait. But, its been a while since a new edition, so.....its alright :)

On a couple recent gatherings I had the opportunity to listen to a couple men speak about several religious topics in front of a group of people.  To be blunt, I wasn’t impressed with any of them.  Their delivery and public speaking abilities were...lacking, in my opinion. Ah, perhaps I am just a harsh critic, and needing to be more gracious.  To be fair, communicating an important message doesn't completely rely on the speaker(s) use the right gestures, tones, or even the ability to stay on track. If I simply chalk these abilities up to “artistic expression”, and realize that everyone has a certain way that they communicate (influenced by their own experiences or education) maybe I will approach them with a little more generosity. So in fairness to these folks, the content of the message is what really counts (and...*sigh*...that too seemed lacking...but I digress, and must work on generosity). 

Ah, but even poorly communicated messages that lack good content offers something for me to learn.  A close friend of mine coined the phrase “You can learn something from everyone, even if it isn’t how to be”. So as I consider my time listening to these speakers, there was a common thread woven from these speakers that resonated with me: “...get to know God...”.

“Get to know God.” 

Contemplating on this, I can reflect upon my life and know that I have experienced various levels of Closeness to God; the Compassion of God; and the Christ sent from God (thank you Pope Francis). There was a time in my life that I would have said these were things I experienced from reading a Christian bible, or going to worship in a Christian setting - which would have been true. However, for some reason when I heard this speaker share this four word phrase, I started to wander in my thoughts... “how do I know God”? 

The answer was fairly simple for me to understand, but I’ll be unpacking the depth of this response for some time. I can know God in my soul, and also through the Five Senses of the human body: In the relationships I have with my wife, friends and relatives, I get to know them through conversation, activities and by learning about the things they do - or have done.  Getting to know the Spirit of God is somewhat similar I suppose.  

I understand that all of creation was made by God, and God called all of creation good (the torah and the bible both “sing” of this). My deduction is that if God made things, and then called them good, perhaps my experience of them (and with them) is capable of allowing me to know God better.....right? 

• The aroma of flowers; baked bread; incense during Mass; my beautiful wife’s perfume...they fill my nostrils - I smell the things God has created. 
• The sight of the mountains and seas beneath me as I fly in an airplane over them; a crucifix displayed in a place of holy worship; the sight of people serving one another...they fill my eyes - I see the things God has created.
• The sound of my beautiful wife’s voice; the whistling of wind through the trees; the laughter of my own kids as they horseplay...they fill my ears - I hear the things that God has created.
• The feel of wet dew in the morning through my sandals; the softness of my wife’s hand in my own; the texture of the Host blessed by the priest at church...they fill my hands - I touch the things that God has created.
• The tang of raspberries grown in my garden; the refreshing flavor of a cool beer on a hot day; the taste of my beautiful wife’s kiss on my lips; relishing the body of Christ in the Eucharist as it rests on my tongue...they ignite my taste buds - I taste the things that God has created.

As I consider these five senses, I wonder...perhaps I should call these “five gifts”. How great these gifts are, that I am able to “...get to know God...” through a physical means and then marry that experience up with a spiritual embrace. How beautiful it is that the Spirit of God would not abandon the physical world that was called “good” and use physical things to communicate with us. I can say that I’ve not always known this way of thinking and I am so grateful to have my religious thinking grow from spiritual only, to physical and spiritual. Having God work in both “realms” rather than just a spiritual realm is quite refreshing for me.

All this to say, I am on earth and on a journey.  I am aware of my journey more than ever before, and my senses (or five gifts) are ignited with sensation.  In all these things, I have the privilege of literally experiencing God with physical senses he has given me.

***Note: a brief search on the web brought up another blogger identifying a similar take on the senses.  Enjoy his thoughts (and the image I borrowed from him) here. 

In loving memory of Terri Schoenberg (June 21, 1953 - November 4, 2013).  

Thank you for your grace and generosity in serving my family. 

We miss you; please tell my dad I said hello.

Your Life Needs Serving, Sir

Be fluid. Be mobile. Sway a little. Serve one another. Approach people with generosity. When there are differences, learn to identify more, and learn to compare less. Be introspective. Consider others more than yourself.  So, these are just a few of the ideas that I’ve encountered from really smart people in this last week alone.  How wonderful to have so many smart people in my life. Thank God for this blessed community making their way through their journey, and taking their time to share their findings with me. 

I see a common thread that ties these ideas together: servanthood. Reflecting on the idea of “serving”, it is amazing to see how much mileage I can get from being an authentic servant. There really is traction with this behavior - I saw it break down bad vibes between people and builds wonderful bridges just this past week. 

Lets not confuse the beautiful act of serving with degrading terms like human-door-mats, or self-imposed-martyrs.  There is quite a difference between these terms and authentic service. For example: door-mats lack confidence and grace. They simply lie there, mute, mostly useless, and they do not explore creative ways to care for feet...it simply receives mud and dirt.  Self-Imposed-martyrdom is really a misnomer. Martyrdom is when you are killed for your religious beliefs - always inflicted by someone else. The thought of “Self-imposed-martyrdom” is a disgusting insult to the likes of early religious people like Andrew, Peter, or Bartholomew who was skinned alive for worshipping Christ and not the Roman Emperor.  The thought of self-imposed-martyrdom is really selfishness; seeking some kind of greedy gain in a twisted sort of way.

Neither of these descriptions portray serving at all. Genuine servanthood is done graciously, with sincere care. One will find authentic love, humility, and grace at the root of serving. I have the opportunity on a regular basis to see my beautiful wife serve me and our family with amazing creations for dinner. She busily works in the kitchen adding backyard grown herbs to a fancy chicken roast, or calling in neighborhood kids to enjoy their first homemade enchilada and avocado salad at a dining table with a complete family.  This is serving: she shares her talent with genuine grace and care with her family and her neighbors.

Reading ancient scripture, I learn how the greatest servant ever, Jesus Christ, explains the greatest form of love.  He says it is to “lay ones life down for a friend”.  The depth of this statement for me is that the “laying down” part doesn’t mean to stop breathing and die - as if you shoved someone out of the way from a bus, to take the impact yourself.  While that too can be love, here I understand it to mean the daily choosing to share (or give) your whole life to a friend...perhaps your spouse or neighbor...so that you might meet their needs in a caring and loving way.  Choosing to set my life aside for a friend, put on a smile while doing it, and find joy in that act of giving is quite a different way to operate than say....the kids at Paddy's pub in Philadelphia.  Without this choice, smile, or joy, I miss the fuel needed to perpetuate that way of life - I am running on my strength and not the strength that joy offers.

It would be nice to see this sort of thinking in our mainstream world. How common it is to focus on my own needs and my own gain. How frequent it is to have thoughts of what I need and create methods on how to meet them. I caught myself wondering what our human race what be like if we genuinely served our neighbors and friends. If but for a day, how would my community become different if I choose to pursue just one person and made sure to respectfully meet their real needs.... then two persons... then three...

I don’t wish to ponder on a utopian world that has everyone serving one another and then share it as a fairy tale story. This is because I would rather not waste my time living on this earth considering a “what if” scenario. Instead, I was pleasantly reminded by a dear friend to actually “do” this kind of life:  To really pursue a life of serving “my friend” and to approach people with all kinds of generosity. 

And, here it goes~

The Contemplative Decision Maker

Over the last few days and even weeks, I have experienced a different hue of decision making for my life. It’s a kind of intentional decisiveness that provides real results, regardless if they turn out to be negative or positive.  As these decisions are being formed, I sort of feel like an observer who watches them as they begin to take shape.  

Looking back at one recent decision that my beautiful wife and I made, we were concluding the process of buying a second car to replace our Mercury. I started to recognize this feeling of “observation” as it became more apparent to me: what I was doing, and how I was doing it. We did all our homework.  We knew the brand, style, engine size, maintenance requirements, mileage, age and other important factors for this family-go-getter.  We learned which problems to expect and what to avoid from the preferred vehicle. We worked through the conflicts and we also learned that when one is on sabbatical, there is no opportunity to get a loan.  In other words, this is a cash only purchase, so we couldn’t make a mistake on this. After about 6-7 weeks of searching, we found that vehicle that made sense for us....which lead us to making a decision...which lead us to writing out a check....which means saying goodbye to an awful lot of hard-earned bank savings.....which lead us to hope that we did our homework right, and hopefully avoid buyers remorse. This was intentional decision making at a very real level.

Another big decision we have been working through is the reality of our financial responsibilities at the conclusion of this sabbatical. After all, a kid like me can only live on savings for so long before the focus of earning an income becomes the primary objective.  So here begins that decision making process of what to do and how to do it.  The outcome of this decision will be intentional, but it comes with all the big life changing characteristics like unknowns, uncertainty...and dare I say fear?

For me, responding to the unknown is a difficult thing to do.  Thinking through this, I speculate that it’s probably because I can’t place a name on what the unknown is, and I cannot place the unknown in a “box” of sorts to control.  The unknown has an ambiguity to it, that keeps it shapeless and perhaps chaotic. In my short 35 years on this planet, I’ve learned that responding to things unknown is rarely done the same way twice.  Thus, relying on the comfort of faith and the communion of my fellow brothers and sisters is crucial.  While this doesn’t take away the unknown, I at least have the ability to respond to the unknown without being alone.  Ah, but allowing decisions to remain unmade or allowing things to simply happen seems to empower the unknown more than it has a right to be empowered. In this place, I could find myself in a prison of my own making....staying put...reacting in uncertainty or worse.......fear. Dare I say that making a decision that becomes bad, might be better than not making any decision at all? I suppose I’ll have to ponder that one a little longer.

As I think through what the next couple months entail for me and my family, the unknown is certainly on my mind. That said, the need to meet my family responsibilities in a post-sabbatical world is an unknown that I am [quite truthfully] becoming excited about.  In fact, I’ve shared some of my ideas about my plan with some key individuals.  The responses I’ve received have had a broad range on the spectrum from fear of the unknown, to confidence that this will be a productive and successful result.  While I value all the responses on the spectrum (this is important, especially with the not so comfortable responses, so that I keep a level head through this decision making process) I’ve found that the fuel I need most is hearing encouraging words from my community, and being assured that building on the capabilities that I have learned will be helpful in this adventure.  Of course there is no promise that this will all “work” per se, but it is amazing how powerful a simple phrase of encouragement can be for some one (like me) working through something new and challenging. Thank God for the community of people He has given me in my life.

Perhaps facing the unknown is a thing beauty. Confronting a given “unknown” reminds me that while I don’t have everything under control, I have the benefit of touring this journey as an active and responsible participant, while retaining an unexplainable confidence that the end result will be sufficient for my needs. Call it faith and works united for the benefit of this journey. Could I ask for anything more? When I make intentional choices that are thought out, contemplative and strategized, there seems to be a power of sorts that that goes along with it.  Maybe this is what has been called an “American Dream” or “Pursuit of Happiness” or “Desires of the Heart”.  Whatever it is on secular or spiritual terms, I am definitely seeing the action of works responding to faith, which [for me] seems to ignite this life adventure and make it an amazing experience. 

Do I have an idea? Have I looked at the risk-reward calculations? Then I must make a decision: put action behind the idea (hint: faith & works) and then work it through. Or, don’t. And then I shall wonder what might have been and miss the spice of life God has allowed me to taste.

There is a responsibility to be had in this operation. Certainly there is no room for carelessness. Praying and contemplating through these things with the help of God and seeking the community of mentors and I have, is critical.  And then, engaging the variety of tangible resources at my disposal like people, technology, transportation, and common sense are the right ingredients to make this work. 

Stay tuned.  This adventure is taking off...again...thanks be to God.