In the darkest hours of the night, our worst memories of the past and our worst fears about the future can crawl out of the shadows to torture us.
The shadow of God's Wings must be a totally different kind of shadow, then, that we can rejoice in it.
Or, is it? Is the shadow of God's Wings a different kind of shadow entirely - or is it any shadow that we're under in which we find God's Presence?
If we truly found God's Presence in any darkness, in all darkness, then we'd know that the underside may be darkness, but the overarching canopy is pure Light, pure Grace.
"A man will come whose name is the Dayspring," the first morning prayer antiphon says. God is Pure Daylight - always! God's Light is the Sun and the Candle that burns through every darkness. When we are confronted by any "dark" situation, one that seems devoid of Hope, our faith tells us that God is Present there - we are being held safe in the shadow of His Wings.
As I leave Thanksgiving weekend behind, I have memories of Light and Dark - the light of many beautiful conversations and experiences, and the dark of knowing and grieving over many difficult, even tragic situations that family and friends are in the middle of.
But I truly believe that I was also aware of God's Presence there with us this weekend. I saw His Presence in the multitude of expressions of Love that I saw in people's faces, in the ways that they moved to include others in activities, in the ways that we fed one another with dishes brought to each festive table, in the ways that people talked deeply with one another. It is God's Love that connects all of us human beings with each other, a Divine Tow Line that pulls us through darkness and storm when we stumble and do not know our way.
If we work at keeping a constant awareness of God in our hearts, if we turn to converse with Him often, it becomes possible to sense His Presence in the here-and-now and have Hope. As long as we don't sabotage ourselves with our lifestyles..
The fast, frenetic way that we lead our lives today often prevents us from being present to God's Presence in our daily life. Fr. Richard Rohr says,
"The presence of God is infinite, everywhere, always, and forever. You cannot not be in the presence of God. There’s no other place to be. It is we who are not present to Presence. We’ll make any excuse to be somewhere else than right here. Right here, right now never seems enough. It actually is, but it is we who are not aware enough yet.
"All spiritual teaching—this is not an oversimplification—is about how to be present to the moment. When you’re present, you will experience the Presence. But the problem is, we’re almost always somewhere else: reliving the past or worrying about the future....
"We live in a time with more easily available obstacles to presence than any other period in history. We carry our obstacles in our pockets now, vibrating and notifying and emoji-ing us about everything and nothing. And let’s be honest: most of our digital and personal conversation is about nothing. Nothing that matters, nothing that lasts, nothing that’s real. We think and talk about the same things again and again, like a broken record. Pretty soon we realize we’ve frittered away years of our life, and it is the only life we have.
"We have to find a way to more deeply experience our experiences. Otherwise we’re just on cruise control, and we go through our whole life not knowing what’s happening. Whether we realize it or not, the divine energy of God is flowing through each one of us. When we draw upon this Source consciously, our life starts filling with what some call coincidences or synchronicities which we can never explain."
In the midst of all the noise and busyness of our lives, God is calling us. God is calling us to come closer, to travel more deeply into our souls where He lives in the center in unimaginable Light. The closer we come to Him through prayer, through real conversation, the more we become comfortable with His Light. The more, then, we are capable of seeing His Light even in the middle of deepest darkness, to see His Light drifting down over us through the openings between the dark feathers of His Wings that shelter us. St. Teresa of Avila tells us how God's voice reaches us in the here-and-now:
"His voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks, and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illnesses and suffering, and through sorrow He calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer He calls to us. No matter how half-hearted such insights may be, God rejoices whenever we learn what He is trying to teach us." ("The Interior Castle.")
Isn't it wonderful! When we look for God's Presence anywhere and everywhere, we can rejoice in any and every darkness, knowing that what is darkness to us is no more than the protective covering of God's Wings.
And simultaneously God is rejoicing in us if we hear His voice calling us any time and anywhere, in every situation, even the ones that seem most hopeless.
How beautiful. We are God's Beloved as much as God is our Beloved. We can rejoice in each other even in the darkest night when we are attacked by the sorrows of the past and our fears about the future. For God lives in our Present and calls us to rest and rejoice there with Him under the protection of the shadow of His Wings.