I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me but it was certainly pleasant to bump into the Lord a couple of times last week; sort of like, running over to Walmart and bumping into a good friend. “Oh hey! Look who’s here!” It’s always a gift to find yourself in the presence of the great I Am, the One who is; right here, right now.

One of the times was at church. (I guess you saw that coming) Kathryn and I go to a little mountain church that averages around twenty a Sunday. Maybe it’s because there are so few of us and the sanctuary is small, but it is easy to see that we are a pretty diverse group. Some of us have lived all over the country and we made our way to this area because we love living in the forest. We get all excited when we see a beautiful, black bear in our yard. Some of us live on property that our grandparents spent a lifetime trying to tame and think it’s great when one of our neighbors shoots one of those smelly nuisances. Some of us are kind of hybrids. All of us meet at the table, pray for one another, laugh with one another, “sing” with one another, and are somehow herded into God’s presence by Pastor Kim. Kim brings a lot of talent to the game but it is my opinion that her strongest pitch is that she seems to think that we are all awesome. All of us. Anyway, last Sunday I went to Bethel United Methodist in the Crooked Creek area of the Old Fort township and I bumped into the One who thinks we are all awesome. All of us.

I also came by a burning, even though it was soaked, bush the other day on my afternoon walk. I was about half way into my planned hike when the rain started coming in buckets; five gallon buckets. It wasn’t long till I felt like I had been immersed. It was water, water everywhere and actually quite a few drops to drink if you were willing to open your mouth and stick out your tongue. It was refreshing, cleansing, purifying . . . baptismal like. Then the buckets turned to drizzle and the sun pushed the clouds away and said, “Hey y’all, look at this.” After the washing, everything was greener, browner, bluer, cleaner. As I journeyed on, beams broke through the leaves of a tree and created a circle of light on side of the road. Just beyond the circle was a hill where the road bent west into the sun. Like Moses, I turned aside to that altar and stood for a few minutes, washed in light and water, pondering what may lie beyond the bend, knowing that I’ll be met there.

There were other times as well. Psalm 19 spoke to me, for me, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord.” I also experienced something of an aha as I cut grass and pondered the Lord’s Prayer. Did you know that heaven is mentioned twice and it closes with “forever and ever?” Apparently eternity is a big deal.

All this leads me to realize, once again, that we don’t really bump into the one who promised to never leave us or forsake us. We just are occasionally gifted with remembering that we are ever, lovingly, held. As Paul said, “In him we live and move and have our being.”

Richard Rohr says that we experience God in our lives. He doesn’t mean like a roommate. He means in our very life, the I Am in the we am. I’ll confess to feeling a little like Nicodemus here when Jesus said, “You’re a teacher and you don’t know about this?” because I just can’t get my mind around that one. But, I think it is what John points to when he says, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” (1:4) Life from the Life.

It’s in our life that we encounter God. It’s in our “divine discontent” that cries for more and turns to sighs too deep for words, it’s in our love for one another that endures all things, it’s in the sustenance we receive when we share that love. . . Christ with us. Closer than breath.

Yep, it’s always a gift to find yourself in the presence of the great I Am, the One who is; right here, right now. Look who’s here indeed.