Detectives of the Divine

 

At some point, in being a detective of the Divine, we must pause, step back, and look at the clues that have congregated together.  Today is a good day to examine the evidence you’ve collected.  What are the ways you have noticed God show up this week?  What is your soul magnifying over the last few days?  And how did a person surprise you yesterday?  Is there a thread or theme in all this evidence?  Sometimes the answer is “Yes” and sometimes, we are baffled and bewildered.  We don’t always get to the “Aha” moment quickly or on our timetable.  I find it helpful to write down, because I can’t keep everything abstractly in my mind.  I am a visual learner.  Plus, the act of writing things down activates kinesthetic learning, where our mind and body celebrate their interconnectedness.  One of my favorite quotes is that your mind is designed to have ideas not hold ideas.  Your mind is designed to be generative, not just some repository of data like a computer.  Plus, we know that when we retrieve moments from the past from our minds, it is soaked and saturated by emotions and experiences that shade the encounter in certain ways.  An experience I had ten years ago has been influenced and impacted by experiences I had ten days ago in ways I can’t always unpack or understand or untangle.  Write down the detective work you’ve done this week.  Then, let God sit beside you as you prayerfully ponder what the sacred might be up to in your life.  To be sure, it might not be crystal clear.  The life of faith is to follow this pattern of gathering the glimpses of grace and then seeking to let God help us make meaning of what we have noticed and name.  May this invitation awaken you to God’s grace and love this day.  Amen.