Dear Reader:

I still have my Presbyterian Children’s Catechism ( introduction to the Shorter Catechism that I learned later….) The tenth questions asks” Where is God” and the correct response: ” God is everywhere.”

At a certain cognitive level… I know this but when a daily meditation by National Bestseller Author-Richard Rohr-explores this ” simple” response we discover that the depth of this acknowledgment is deeper than our conscious can initially absorb.

My favorite children’s story …introducing this important concept …comes from the cutest book –Does God Have a Big Toe!

Rumors started that a big flood would end the world and the animals knew they had to find God and quickly! But where did He live?

The elephant, bragging about being the biggest land animal, decided Good would be found on the biggest mountain top. But he didn’t find God.

Since the eagle could fly so high surely God lived in the highest place in the skies. He flew as high as He could and then yelled out to God but was met with silence.

The Lion thought, like himself, God most be louder than him so he roared and roared to no response.

The three animals shook their heads in defeat…. they sat together by a river until the fish spoke up. ” We live in the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes because water is everywhere-above and below us… water is all around. If the water is everywhere, God must be everywhere too. ”

( The story ends with God saving all the fish-just not two of each kind of animal-because only they knew where to find God. Everywhere! )

But children grow up and do we now, as adults, really comprehend the enormity of the proclamation ” God is everywhere. ” Do we realize God is in our midst every single day and there is no place on earth we can not find God.

Richard Rohr explains it this way…” We cannot ” not” live in the presence of God. We are totally surrounded by God all the time and everywhere. We have no choice in the matter, except to bring it to consciousness.

( Hard to believe St Patrick’s Day and Lachlan’s birthday is next week!) Rohr includes St Patrick in his meditation on ” God Is Everywhere.” He paraphrases St. Patrick.

God with me, God before me,

God behind me, God within me,

God beneath me, God above me,

God at my right, God at my left.

Knowing God’s presence is a matter of awareness, of fully allowing and enjoying the present moment… these marvelous moments happen naturally, normally, when we are out of the way. Even in this ” little piece of clay that we are,” in this moment of tine that we are-we begin to see it in others, and eventually, in all things.

So until tomorrow… ” God is all in all” ( I Corinthians 15:28.)

God is in all things …precisely in God’s ever-newness and God’s ever-possibility .

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh