I grew up being taught that God was up there somewhere.
In heaven…wherever that was.
That way of thinking and talking about God worked for me for a long time, but it doesn’t anymore. I now think and talk about God as that which binds life together. My life to your life to her life to his life; to both those who I know and to those I will never meet. And, in recent years our understanding of what is alive has even changed. We now understand that we are bound to/inter-related with what used to be labeled as inanimate – water, air, earth, sand. All of which has now become wrapped up in that which I know and name as God.
Maybe that is why I like the Christmas story in the Bible so much.
It is about God right here. Right now.
Human and holy wrapped up together;
Mixed up in life…my life and your life…just as it is.
God suddenly present and made real;
Or, at least with the possibility of being present and made real;
In the flesh and blood encounters that happen each and every day.
These days of Advent which continue to lead me…
And sometimes push me…
Towards Christmas,
Serve as a reminder not to look up, but to look around;
And to do my best to look for God in those places where God might really be found.
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