The inner affinity with the Mystery in whom we are alive and move and have being—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—can grow on us only in the experience of God as ‘the All’: the God of each of us at the expense of none of us, the God who never comes alone but always with the entire cosmos and all of humanity.  This experience is the heart of common worship, with its cosmic and universalist dimensions, its significant silence and significant speech, its significant gesture and significant motionlessness, its interplay of the seen and the unseen—in sum, its doxology made tangible.

Franz Josef van Beeck, “Trinitarian Theology as Participation,” The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, edited by Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, SJ, Gerald O’Collins, SJ

Doxology—from the Greek word doxa (δόξα), meaning glory: Glory to “the God of each of us at the expense of none of us, the God who never comes alone but always with the entire cosmos and all of humanity.”

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“Space fractal with stars” image by Rose Hoover, rc

On my bookcase sit the following treasures picked up during a walk along the beach not far from our Cenacle in Lantana, Florida:

• a piece of shell edged in burgundy
• something white, curly, and lovely that I don’t recognize
• a U.S. quarter that has been tossed about by waves for so long it is almost unrecognizable
• and two pieces of bleached coral (is it a bad sign for the environment, I wonder, that coral is washing ashore?)

Spiritual gifts are as abundant as seashells, begging us to pause for a moment, stoop down, and gather them as we walk through the day. But we must not expect choirs of angels hovering above to point them out to us. If we are not attentive, we risk overlooking them. According to Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.

The world is indeed strewn with pennies (and wave-tumbled quarters) for those who have eyes to see.

But then I recall another quotation from Annie Dillard — a caution to those of us inclined to spend our lives combing the spiritual sands. Using the image of the ocean, she asks:

Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

From the gifts to the Giver
God’s gifts are good and to be received with gratitude. Nevertheless, we are not made for the gifts, but for God. The shells and pennies, literal or spiritual, are cozy gifts, more or less comprehensible to our limited minds. God the Giver of gifts, however, is beyond our human grasp, dwelling “in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16) — and the divine light, anything but cozy, can appear to us as darkness.

Are we just “playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat”? Or are we perhaps out of the boat, but gazing at our own feet in the sand of the beach? According to an oft-quoted expression, “We become what we contemplate.” Are the eyes of our heart so focused on God’s gifts that we overlook God? Are we satisfied with becoming the shells and quarters, or do we recognize the deep longing implanted in us for union with the Divine?

So I continue to pick up treasures God leaves for me in the sand of my day—and when I remember, I give thanks. Occasionally I even let myself be reminded by these gifts (or even by their absence) that there is Mystery behind and beyond them – and that it is this Mystery who is my purpose and my destination.

Do not be deceived, my beloved.
Every generous act of giving,
with every perfect gift, is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
(James 1:16-17)

It (the gown) was purchased about 15 years ago — a prim, sisterly kind of night attire, 100% cotton, full-length, with short sleeves and a high neck. It is still, in a new millennium, cotton, full-length, with short sleeves and a high neck — but it is no longer prim and sisterly. Over the years it has worn out gradually, every bit of it wearing out together, none faster than another, so that the fabric has grown thinner and thinner. Although there is not a rip or tear or frayed thread anywhere, it is now almost transparent. I fancy that one morning as I get out of bed, my wonderful nightgown, still without a rip or a tear, will simply crumble into dust at my feet, leaving me scarcely more exposed than I am now when it is intact.

We are made in the image and likeness of God. Like the wonderful nightgown, our lives should grow more and more transparent, revealing to the world the image of God in us. Unfortunately, many things in our hearts and our lives prevent God’s image from being visible through us. We read in the first letter of John:

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he [or it] is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

What keeps us from this kind of seeing right now? What keeps us from being like Jesus, when we are already made in the image and likeness of God?

O God, may my life be transparent so as to show forth your glory.
May nothing hinder the manifestation of your image in me —
neither fear, nor selfishness, nor ego, nor greed,
nor hatred, nor violence, nor vengeance,
nor unhealthy attachment to things not of you.
May I gaze at Jesus and grow in likeness to your Son,
that your light and love and peace may shine through me.

First, the escalator at Macy’s wasn’t working last week, so along with the other customers, I was walking down. Standing on the bottom step — as some sort of safety measure, I suppose — was a woman, an employee of the store. Between her feet was a shoe, so that she looked as if she had three feet. When I reached the bottom, I said to her, “You look like you have three feet.” She gave a polite, uncomfortable laugh, perhaps to acknowledge the obvious, or perhaps to humor someone who had just said something absurd. I walked on, pondering the mystery of the three-shoed woman.

Second, while I was in Florida visiting my father, I took a walk to the pond. A bird hopped down beside me and began following me — a rather nondescript bird, a little larger than a mockingbird, with dark wings, a brown breast, and a beak which looked very sharp. He hopped alongside me, and then his family joined him. Soon he flew up to a branch, but he continued to follow me, flying from low branch to low branch. I asked him if he had anything to tell me, but if he did, I didn’t hear it. My dad, who is very practical, commented later that someone had probably been feeding him, but I couldn’t help but wonder. After all, this was not a pigeon, a seagull, or even a sparrow: that is, not the kind of bird I usually associate with begging for food.

A woman with three feet and a bird hopping along beside me are probably not mysteries of the caliber of a burning bush. However, I can’t help but feel that if we don’t pause and take off our shoes before these small mysteries, we may miss the large ones.

To be exact, this was a sea nettle. (I looked it up.) Like other jellyfish, I learned, it has no heart, no blood, and no brain.

My only impression so far of jellyfish had been that they are a nuisance when one is swimming in the ocean — more than a nuisance if you are stung by one. In fact, as I stared at this one, my first reaction was a feeling of fascinated disgust. The sea nettle had shapeless stuff hanging from its bell which reminded me of primal goo. It was especially unappealing when it turned upside-down. I wasn’t even sure that it was alive.

Then a second jellyfish appeared, and I realized that they were both in fact alive. I wondered if this one could be the mate of the other — though it’s hard to imagine anything without either a heart or a brain wanting to swim along companionably with its mate.

Gradually, as I watched, a marvelous thing happened: I saw how beautiful they were. The first was a translucent white; the second had red stripes. They both looked like uprooted mushrooms. Even more remarkable, considering my first reaction to them, was the concern I felt as the water became rough and the striped one seemed in danger of being smashed.

Too often, I don’t gaze long enough at things or people to see their beauty. In gazing, we may at times be granted the gift of seeing the world and its inhabitants a bit the way God sees them. When that happens, we perceive the beauty that was there all along, but which we had not, up until that moment, had the eyes to see.

O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. (Psalm 104:24)

“Should we call ahead and make a reservation?” we asked each other. We finally decided that with several motels in Waycross, which is not exactly the tourist capital of the Southeast, it was more than likely that vacancies would be a dime a dozen.

We arrived in Waycross about 7:00 p.m., and the first motel we approached simply waved us away with no explanation. At the second one we were told that everything in town was booked, with the possible exception of one suspiciously timeworn place.

“Why,” I asked, “are all the motel rooms in Waycross, Georgia, filled on a Tuesday night?”

It appeared that there was some sort of housing convention going on. Who would have thought?

The two employees at the desk asked if we would like them to call ahead and make a reservation for us in a nearby town.

“Where would you suggest?”

Two small towns were mentioned, and we settled on Jesup, which turned out to be not so near at all — about an hour away from Waycross and on a different highway from the one on which we had come. By this time Sister Elizabeth and I were both tired, but off we went toward Jesup, trying to look on the positive side of events.

Between Waycross and Jesup we glimpsed a small sign on the left side of the road. “CHAMPION TURKEY OAK,” it read, with an arrow pointing to the left. What was a turkey oak? I made a vague resolution to check it out.

To make a long story short, we arrived in Jesup, where the motel was spotlessly clean, where lights had been turned on to welcome us, where the small staff was exceptionally caring, where we tumbled into our beds exhausted, and where the next morning we had a complementary breakfast better than any I’ve ever eaten in a motel.

On the road again, backtracking toward Waycross and the Okefenokee, we passed through a town called Screven. There we saw the sign pointing toward the champion turkey oak, so we made a sharp turn in the direction of the arrow.

However, after proceeding for some way, no turkey oak was to be found (assuming we would have recognized one had we seen it), so we stopped to ask directions from an elderly woman coming out of a school building. We headed off again, soon to find ourselves wandering fruitlessly around the quiet streets of Screven.

As we were beginning to despair of finding the turkey oak, along came a car which to our surprise turned out to be driven by the woman we had met outside the school. Having realized that she had given us the wrong directions, she had chased us down. She called out, “If you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you to the turkey oak” — which she did.

It was not a beautiful tree, although it is the largest of its kind in the country. Nevertheless we were duly impressed and took pictures to record the event. (Later we learned that this tree is called a turkey oak because its leaves resemble a turkey’s foot.)

The night before, we had been sure that not calling ahead to make a motel reservation had been a mistake. We had traveled more than two hours out of the way by the time we finally got to the Okefenokee. But despite everything, I am certain that we were on the right road.

In Jesup, we had the consolation of tender loving care by the operators of the motel, and they had the consolation of providing that care for us and receiving our gratitude. The Screven resident had the consolation of showing us kindness beyond the call of duty, and we had the consolation of receiving her kindness. What was bestowed on us was of far greater value than the ordinary comfort of stopping early in the evening without fatigue and without incident.

It is important not to forget moments like this: occasions when we seem to be off course, only to discover that we are just where we were meant to be. Perhaps we had been on the right road all along. Or perhaps we really had made a mess of things, and God, always eager to do good for us, transformed what could well have been a road fraught with peril into a path radiant with grace. Those who have eyes to see, let them see.

Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? (Mark 8:18)