From The Restory - Conversations On The Journey (145)

 

God, And The Place Where I Live

Our voices are so thick and scratchy from bad colds that we were unable to make a recording this week.

However, we hope to still do justice to this important theme of the place where we live, our home, yard, environment, our space, wherever it is, as the space where God is experienced. Where God is. The more intimately we engage with this space in all its shades and seasons, the more intimate the bond with God becomes.

Wallace Stevens once said:

"We live in the description of a place and not in the place itself."

It cannot just be a superficial experience, a description. We must enter into the fibre of our place. A couch potato approach will not do the trick. You have to be on ground level: Where does the rush grass sprout after the heavy rain? The Black Sparrowhawks have been quiet this year. Why? Does anyone have any idea how many species of grass there are? Why do the fountains bubble up in those particular places at the foot of Tafelkop?

Wendell Berry is an important guide in these things. His wisdom guides us into an earthy, spacious spirituality.

Hope

then to belong to your place by your own knowledge

of what it is that no other place is, and by

your caring for it as you care for no other place, this

place that you belong to though it is not yours.

That's what we would talk about if we could talk.

We close with this prayer by Teilhard de Chardin:

God must be as vast as the Universe

and as warm as a human heart,

and incomparably more besides.

This is all we can say.

With our love.

George & Matilda