The thing that pulls me toward atheism is the very thing that keeps me fully within faith.
The daily experience of God’s absence, that utter silence, fans my memory of the Divine soaked time just outside of a Tim Hortons, when I was suddenly possessed by the radiance of people, and it took every ounce of my strength not to hug a passing stranger; or the fall day, walking a trail through scrub poplar, a hawk overhead in a sky booming with blue, and at my feet, grouse exploding orange and yellow out of fallen leaves and underbrush; or the time in a darkened farm shed, my eyes resting on my father’s back as he bent over a steel disc, and the shocks of light coming from the welding rod colliding with shafts of sun angling in through chinks in the plank walls, and I stood trembling, as in the belly of an oracle; or the time I gave away all my dimes to a barefoot boy, and knew joy.
Perhaps today love will possess me again.
Love this.
Thank you Liane!
Your experience outside Tim Hortons when you were possessed by the radiance of people, reminded of a similar story in a Thomas Merton book called “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”. Here is a link I found on it:
http://www.spiritualtravels.info/articles-2/north-america/kentucky-a-thomas-merton-tour/thomas-mertons-mystical-vision-in-louisville/
Thanks, Steve – and Sheldon: loved the reference to Merton that Steve’s blog recalled. Too often people just get in my way~~
Thanks Sheldon. I do recall reading of Merton’s ‘epiphany.’ A great story.
Thanks Sam. As well, for your candor:)