Arise! Wake up! Look around!

By Deacon Connie R. Stover
Director, Seeking the Spirit Within


Today as I write this blog article, I cannot see the sun, and it is bitterly cold outside.  It looks like the sun has disappeared and abandoned me, as the sky is a dulling, gray slate of sameness.  I want to wrap myself in a warm, soft blanket and hibernate.  But alas, today is the deadline for this article to be written.  People are reaching out to me with their questions through phone calls, text messages and emails.  As I sit at my computer, I realize that I am hungry.  It is as if God is saying to me,

“Arise!  Wake up!  Look around!”

For me, God’s call to arise, wake up, and look around, comes each morning as I sit myself down in my sacred space to spend time with God.  This is a daily intention to first look to God for the gifts of light and warmth in all days – the gray days of routine sameness and the bright days of exciting newness.  If I invite God to look around the dawning of day with me, I can see and feel the presentation of the day in deeper ways.  Tucked into the fabric of what my human eyes can see and what my human skin is able to feel on a gray day, God has sewn what is beautifully unexpected and gracious.

I hear crackling sounds coming from two unattended logs in my fireplace that look cold and dead.  I look up from these typed words -- and then suddenly – lively flames pop up to surprise me with their brightly colored light!

A text message that confuses my foggy brain becomes the warm gift of experiencing someone’s growing awareness of appropriate boundaries.

A phone call that I anticipated was going to be someone asking me to do “just one more thing” is instead the blessed gift of hearing that another individual wants to register for an upcoming retreat.

As I feel those hunger pains that truly do wake up my body, I remember that I have leftover soup that can give me the warmth and nutrition I am craving on this cold day.

Everything can appear dark, cold, and gloomy.  And yet, my experience of life continues to reveal the surprises of God’s presence and activity in the midst of everything.  God is here with us!  Indeed, this is Good News!  Let us pray that we will awaken from the grayness of our sleepy unawareness to be fully alive in God’s brightness.

In this season of Epiphany, which focuses on God’s desire to show us the depth and breadth of God’s love and mercy,
                  may we arise each day yearning to be aware of God’s presence . . . 
                  may we look expectantly for the gifts God is giving in each day. . .
                  may we wake up to the activity of God in our daily lives . . .
                  may we experience the light of God’s love breaking into whatever we are doing!

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