The last week of Easter, the seventh Sunday, I preached from these readings, trying to work out what it means to say that God is “omnipresent”—that is, always perfectly attentive and available to us—and why that should be heard as good, good news.
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Two poems to begin.
The first is an excerpt—an almost too-well-known excerpt—from Eliot’s “East Coker”:
… In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not.
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
The other is completely unknown but twice as good, written (and sung!) just yesterday by one of my favorite poets—my son, Emery, who’s nine:
God is so weird. And it’s like he thinks it’s cool
to be mysterious.
Jesus Christ, explain yourself to me
’cause everything is so confusing.
As the kids say: Selah.
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