God is not an object to behold but the ground of our beholding … the arena of being present in and to all things. Our perception of God may begin with God as object but our experience of God slowly morphs into an Union of loving presence.

The danger of making God in our own image is real. It happens when we are young because we can do no other but as we mature, we grow in our capacity to encounter God as He is, not as we imagine Him to be. In His grace, we still encounter Him, even when we misunderstand, which happens always to some degree.

As I increasingly live in the awareness of union with God, which is already present in all its fullness, I am freed to discontinue clinging to anything, even my own life. I am free to be fully present to God, others, and myself. As I notice clinging, or some other afflictive emotion, it can receive it as the gift of being reminded that I have stepped outside of abiding in trust. 

Truly, there is nothing that can separate us from the love (presence) of God. However, I can live like an orphan, still searching for a home when all that is necessary is to turn and sit at the feet of the one who calls me beloved. 

As Meister Eckhart expressed, “God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.” The poet Rumi expressed this in communal terms, “we’re all just walking each other home.” There exists a both/and nature to being present to God, and even these wonderfully stated observations cannot hold the reality that we often experience distance from God, and yet he is never distanced from us. God is more present and integrated into the fabric of our existence than we could ever imagine, and our lives are a journey of coming into a loving knowing of this reality. God, always present and closely abiding with us, longs for us to turn so that we can experience Him experiencing us.

“What we usually call the real life is not real at all. It is as flaky as they come. Laugh at it; weep over it; pray for it; take every opportunity to expose it; seek to redeem it. But never make the mistake of thinking it is real.” N. Gordon Crosby