Journal Date: October 8, 2000
Location: Belgian Chocolate Café, Ankara, Turkey
In the cold drizzle of an autumn rain in Ankara, I glimpse the divine.
In the wetness that soaks through, threatening to chill the bones but never quite going that far, I feel the power of God seeping into me. This is not blow-me-over power, not the power of fear, but instead the power of full presence. A presence that doesn’t overwhelm until you are completely soaked in it and realize there is no escape. Slowly and gradually the rain fills up every dry spot until you realize that without even seeking it, you are full with the presence of the Holy.
What does this mean?
Can it possibly mean that what we thought was profane, a separation between the sacred and the secular, the holy and the mundane, is in actuality a veil of shadows? The veil seems solid enough if we only look at it and take others’ word for it that it is so. Others who, like us, have not summoned the courage to simply step through the curtain of shifting light.
In reality, aren’t shadows just the attempt of tricky lights to fool us, to make us believe something exists when in fact it doesn’t? So it is that we discover no real barrier between the holy and the mundane exists. We discover, with mounting joy and excitement, that all of life is holy. And all of life is mundane.
Every part of us exudes the presence of the Creator, if we are looking with open eyes and hearts. If we let our preconceptions clatter to the ground and break to pieces. If we let go of dogma and tired religiosity and embrace the presence of God wherever it may be found.