Wonder and Oneness

I pray they will be one . . .

                                 John 17:21a

I’ve been thinking about reverence this week, because I am part of a small group studying An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. As I read the gospel lesson for this past Sunday, from which the above verse is taken, it dawned on me that reverence means the ability to recognize that we are all one, that we are all in Christ—not only people but all created things. Paying attention—being reverent—is to see the thread of Light and Love that binds us all one to another: apple to fish to person to tree to ant to star to water to bird to God.

I wonder how my seeing ever got so bad that I was no longer able to see that thread. My husband tells the story of getting his first pair of glasses as a child and being surprised that the mass of green on the side of the road was comprised of individual blades of grass! It seems that for a time I lost my “glasses” of grace and wonder, glasses I had as a child. When I do put those glasses on, I can see God in everything. When I see with grace and wonder, the thread that connects us all is obvious.

It takes conscious effort on my part to put on the glasses of grace and wonder. Our culture, with its cynicism and frenetic pace of life, is not going to encourage me to view the world through lenses of grace and wonder. While our culture loves to idolize created things—money, possessions and status—it does not encourage us to be reverent, to hold the mystery of what we cannot explain, nor to even attempt to explain that which is greater than us.

Glasses of grace and wonder differ from regular glasses by training my eyes to see reverently all the time. I want to be where I always see the oneness of all creation with its Creator. I want to be able to see all creation as holy so that all of life becomes sacrament (visible image of the invisible God) for me.