{"id":1786,"date":"2024-04-03T14:22:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/?p=1786"},"modified":"2024-04-03T14:22:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:22:14","slug":"divine-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/2024\/04\/03\/divine-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Divine Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday, I was on campus late. I had just finished attending a wonderful lecture by a visiting scholar, Dr. Sawyer Kemp, and I was walking from the Memorial Ballroom back to my car. The wind was blowing in the way that wind often does\u2014majestically and softly. I stopped at the big tree near Carnegie.<\/span><\/p>\n

I notice this tree a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

I often find myself wanting to wrap my arms around it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is it about this beautiful tree?<\/span><\/p>\n

There are times in my life when I feel the Divine in nature. I am known for asking, \u201cDo you feel God in that rock?\u201d I have been known to weep at Collins Creek near Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. My grandmother\u2019s name was Collins.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ram Dass once said, \u201cThe Universe is an example of love. Like a tree. Like the ocean. Like my body. Like my wheelchair. I see the love.\u201d What a beautiful and radical way to see the world, a place where love (and maybe even the Divine) pulses through everything!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had a great spiritual awakening in my thirty-ninth year. I more sharply began to see God in all people; it was something I believed\u2014the way one may believe that the stars shine to remind us of wishing and hoping\u2014but I really started to feel in the very core of my being that God lives in all. Years later, I still carry this with me. When I look at my students, I see God. When I look at my coworkers, I see God. When I look at the big tree near Carnegie, I see God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What would our world be like if we saw the Divine in each face we encountered? Would we forgive more? We would judge less? Would we love unconditionally? I leave you with these questions, dear reader. I leave you with hope for seeing beauty and goodness in each other. I leave you with a prayer for love and all things holy to be present for you each day. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday, I was on campus late. I had just finished attending a wonderful lecture by a visiting scholar, Dr. Sawyer Kemp, and I was walking from the Memorial Ballroom back to my car. The wind was blowing in the …<\/p>\n

Divine Presence<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jeremy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1QIf6-sO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}