Shining Spirit

The smiling flowers make me reflect for a moment on a question many people have asked.  Indeed, where is God?  No matter what your religious persuasion might be, the nature, character, and “presence” of God have puzzled humankind for as long as we have identified a sacred “Other”.  Conventional religious teaching, what I remember from Sunday School, answers the question of “where” by saying:  Look up!  God is “up there”, with “up there” being heaven, a location beyond the clouds and beyond human sight.  “God is in his heavens, and all’s right with the world.” (Gender issues aside, apparently you have to look up when you smile at God.)

But the flowers in this photograph seemed to be smiling in all directions.  Beautiful flower faces are pointing up and down, here and there, and toward all points on the compass.  Could it be that smiling at God is not restricted to one place or even one perception?  Could it be that the presence of the Sacred is everywhere…in and through reality as we know it?  I like to think that no matter where I look, into the good and into the not-so-good moments, I can “see” that which I call God.  The Presence is radically present.

So, like the flowers, smile at life in all directions.  God will see it.