Dear TSJ Friends,
Welcome to a couple of minutes with Solomon who invites us to discover some wisdom in our lives each week. Today we are exploring a question. Where are you?
As a coach and as an older person, I increasingly appreciate the value of questions. Good questions help us discover our motives and the longings of our hearts as well as expand our horizons.
Questions often help us reflect. They help us remain curious, but taking time to reflect is increasingly difficult in our pressured and noisy lives. However, it is in reflection that we are open to seeing things differently.
The other day, for some mysterious reason, I was drawn to re-read the story of creation in the book of Genesis. Have you ever been drawn to do something or read something seemingly “out of the blue?”
You know what I discovered? The whole Bible starts with “Where are you?” as being the first question God asked. God is clearly invested in being in relationship with us.
God asked it for a reason. Something was amiss.
I have heard and read the creation story many times before and been troubled by it. Even God asking them,”Where are you?” troubled me because I “heard” it as yelling at them in a threatening voice designed to humiliate them. After all, God knew where they were, so why did he ask them?
The older I am and the more healed I get from early childhood trauma that affected my views of God, the more I “hear” a different tone in God’s “voice”. I had never heard it as a tone of love and concern because their relationship – that was very important to him – was now hurt.
This is partly because as I age I look at the mishaps and misguided choices younger people make as part of a development process.
It helps me understand us humans best when I remember we all go through various stages of development – physically, emotionally and spiritually. In each stage we are able to shift our perspectives and question our perceptions. That is part of maturing. And after being a child myself – both of God and human parents – an erring one at that – as well as being a parent myself I now can hear love and compassion in that question.
After they ate the forbidden fruit “ ….. They heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze . . . [they] hid themselves from the presence of the Lord….. but God called to the man, “Where are you?”” Adam confessed he was hiding because he was naked and afraid.
Wow! I can relate. Both as a person who has been “caught” – exposed – many times in my life. As a child, I could never figure out why I always was caught when I did wrong! But as an adult I can relate to the question from a different angle. When the child is strangely quiet and you ask “where are you?” they become focused in a hurry.
So, this time in reading the story I have “heard” the question more compassionately, “Where are you?” Imagine God asking you that question directly at any given moment.
It is orienting. It caused them to have to be fully awake. They were caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. And there were consequences, but God spared their lives and provided for them in new ways.
Like us, they felt exposed and ashamed. God then asked, “Who told you you were naked?” And then ….. “Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?” (Genesis 3:8-11 NRSV) God knew. We cannot hide from the Presence.
Thus stories take on broader meanings as we mature and “see” things through the eyes of experience and wisdom.
For example while a toddler sees mostly table legs a teenager sees food.. An adult sees the people around the table and understands its uniting value in a family – shared food, shared space and shared stories.
In this light, I think we can ask ourselves “where are you?” every so often this week and reflect on our answer. This can happen on several levels or from several angles.
For example, … it quickly helps us notice exactly where we are physically and forces us to come back home into our own bodies for a moment. Or it can serve as a reminder to ask ourselves where we are emotionally at any given moment. In your relationship with God and the Universe, where are you spiritually?
Truthfully we all take a bite out of the alluring fruit in today’s context of our drive for success, wealth, importance, recognition and busyness.
And like Adam and Eve, we cannot hide from God’s Presence!
It has helped me look at my work and life this week and see some things differently. I am excited about that and hope it is helpful for you too.
Margie
