Mtr Mary Trainor

Dear friend,

Where do you find God?

It’s not a trick question, but an earnest one. Where is it that you most sense God’s presence?

Church is an obvious answer. Yet others would disagree. For some, finding God at church is an idea destroyed years ago by one bad experience or another.

In our selection today from the letter to the Hebrews, we read about places humankind created from early times in order to know where God was, presumably for purposes of worship. As far as that goes, it’s a worthy idea. As long as we do not delude ourselves into believing that structures made with human hands are the only places God can be found.

The empty tomb changed for all time the notion that we can capture God, put God in a hole in the rock, seal it, and keep God there.

Where does one find God?

My journey goes like this. I am deeply rooted in the animal kingdom, where God’s creative energies are displayed so magnificently in the diversity of beings, fierce devotion to family, playfulness, and even killing—but only ever for self-protection or food.

I am aware of God in children’s laughter, in acts of kindness, in the beauty of a forest, or the sound of ocean waves crashing onto shore. I have found God in church. And I have God found missing from the Church—one of the greatest tragedies of all.

Years ago I attended a nondenominational church with my mother, who had come to live in my community after my father’s death. She wanted to go to church so we tried a few. She liked this particular one, so we went more than once. I kid you not, each Sunday we were there, the preacher was condemning one group or another: Mormons, gays, women stepping out of their rightful place in the culture.

Three Sundays was all I could take, and we did not return.

Being disappointed in church was not a new experience. As a middle-aged, unchurched professional, I was accustomed to disappointment where church was concerned. God was not the disappointment. The faith community was.

Then one day, following an odd series of what I now believe were God interventions, I found myself walking through the doors of an Episcopal Church. I didn’t even know what an Episcopal Church was or what it believed, but I knew the moment I entered I was at home and God was there. And all were welcome.

Where have you found God?

Mtr Mary