Posts Tagged ‘Psalm 82:6-7’

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Br. Keith Nelson

John 10:31-42

When your mind’s eye creates a picture of God, how does God appear to you? As a kind-faced Galilean rabbi; or a stern European monarch; as brilliant as the sun; or like the dark shimmer of the ocean under moonlight?

When your mind’s ear hears the voice of God, how does that voice sound? Is it a rich, resonant bass, or a liquid, silvery soprano?

When your mind’s flesh knows the touch of God, how does it feel? Is it soft and warm as a knowing hand’s caress? Or have you perhaps felt, like the prophet Jeremiah, something like “a fire shut up inside your bones”? (Jeremiah 20:9).

Maybe God smells like fresh coffee or frankincense or the dirt in your garden. Maybe God tastes like the wine of Holy Communion or … a Werther’s Original stashed away in your grandmother’s purse?

Suffice it to say that without these and a kaleidoscope of other sense impressions, God would be much less real to us. The Sacred must meet us in and through some mediating experience, some access point for our human faculties. Even if we meet the sacred in the gentle laying aside of words and images, that persistent return to a glance, a breath, a posture keeps the compass needle of the soul aligned with its true north. Read More