Listening to God in Creation: A Spiritual Practice
By Mary C. Daly, RSM
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Poet, peacemaker, minister and Celtic spirituality scholar, John Philip Newell, gave a retreat entitled "The Song of the Sacred Earth" at Mercy by the Sea in mid-July. Sister Mary Daly offered this spiritual practice as part of the three-day retreat.
“I was searching without while you were within ... more inward than my inmost self and superior to my highest being.” St. Augustine, The Confessions
“Let the final word be, ‘God is in all things’.”
Every artist knows that her work of art bears some resemblance, some likeness to herself. And then, the viewer contemplating the art work also is, in some sense, contemplating the artist. Sometimes you resonate, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you find a piece of yourself being opened by this art as you let it enter your being.
So I would like you to consider God the artist present to all that God has made, that bears God’s likeness. Let the God in creation, actively present, actively engaging us, impinge upon your senses, arouse your feelings, engage your thoughts and emotions through some part of creation that will speak God to you.
I invite you to wander among God’s creation, including second-hand creations, such as ant hills, bird nests, groundhog holes, pottery, furniture, wood carvings, buildings, and so on. Wander without thought. Let a piece of creation, some likeness of God, beckon you, speak to you, invite you to consider it closely as Subject engaging you not Object oblivious to you. What attracts or repels you? How does it reveal the sacredness in you? What does God say to you through this?
Receive from this creature what its Creator wishes to say to you. Listen to God in creation communing with you. What is evoked in you? What feelings does God’s presence in closeness or distance stir in you? Where does God especially find God’s image in you? What does God cherish in you?
Are there words, images, colors or feelings that capture the sense, the shape, the gift of God’s presence with you through this portion of creation?
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