Everywhere, All The Time

This week I can't seem to get away from the fact that God is everywhere, all the time - maybe because He IS everywhere, all the time.  I guess the thought process really began last week when an online friend blogged about breathing God.  He talked about the Hebrew word for God, Yahweh, and how that really referred to breathing so that even just breathing you were actually saying the word Yahweh.  If you have 2-3 minutes you can read his blog entry by clicking here.  It is the post dated 6th November entitled Breathing.  The point I'm making is that all life breathes all the time wherever it finds itself.  In the beginning God breathed life into the universe, His breath, His presence into everything.  No life exists without His living breath and presence within it.  


Then this week another friend shared on Facebook the picture opposites saying in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson that wise people see miracles in ordinary things.   It seems to me that we tend to go looking here, there and everywhere for some expression of the power of God when He's all around us in the ordinary, everyday life.  I have often mentioned and will always be amazed at the cycle of nature and the seasons.  The very variety and detail of creation is astounding and documentaries seem to come up with new things all the time.  Some people have a tendency to imply that God can be found only in certain places or certain situations or certain times as though you need to go through some formula (usually involving special music, readings or prayers) of conjuring up His presence, even asking Him to come and be with us when God Himself clearly says that He is in all thing all the time.  Jesus also told us that the Holy Spirit is within us.


A couple of days ago the thoughts on God being everywhere continued when I read the daily meditation of Richard Rohr.  He is a Roman Catholic Franciscan priest whose daily meditations give much food for the soul.  You can subscribe to receive his daily thoughts on the website here and enter your details at the right hand side to subscribe.  He quotes Boniface when he says, 'By God's power, presence and essence, God is the one whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.  God exists uncircumscribed in everything.' meaning that God is everywhere.  Boniface goes on to say:

God is therefore all inclusive.  God is the essence of everything.  God is most perfect and immense within all things but not enclosed, outside all things but not excluded, above all things but not aloof, below all things but not debased.  Finally therefore, this God is all in all ... ... Consequently from Him, through Him and in Him, all things exist.



He is so powerful, He is everywhere at all times.  He is so spectacular, He makes so many miracles look like ordinary.  His presence is alive in every breath of every life form.  God is in everything and everything is in God.  It's time to stop searching here, there and everywhere.  Wherever I am, He is.  Or as St. Francis said 'The whole world is our cloister'.  As long as I breathe, He is within me.  Or as the song says, 'This is the air I breathe, your holy presence living in me.'   He is Yahweh, the I AM, the ever present breath of life, everywhere, all the time.