To Be

As I started to write the reflection on the Da Vinci biography, I realized that there were two brief entries that were waiting to be completed. I think I initially felt that they were separate things but instead as I re-read them tonight, I realized how deeply connected they are. I was listening to a podcast called Typology (about the Enneagram) and Ian Cron (the host) shared several things that deeply connected with me. He shared a quote from a Christian mystic named Evelyn Underhill who said that “we spend our lives conjugating the verbs ‘to have’ and ‘to want’ when the fundamental verb of the Christian life is ‘to be.’” Then later in the podcast, he noted how people (especially the 3s on the Enneagram that he was talking about) need to find ways of being able to simply “sit in the adoring gaze of God.”

To simply sit in the adoring gaze of God.

For me, I have often felt it was the other way around in that I needed to find times to let God sit in my adoring / worshipping / loving gaze. That it was about God as the subject of my love, of our love. And there is truth to that - that is a big part of what worship is. However, that’s not all and it is dangerous when we lose sight of how God has an adoring gaze that shines upon each of us - God’s beautiful creations.

At lunch the other day, my friend Rich, reminded us of how we too often focus on how we “choose Jesus” but in fact it is the other way around. Jesus has already chosen us. Even as I write those words, I think of all the ways that I don’t measure up and wonder how Jesus could possibly choose me with all of my faults. Yet that is the Gospel truth - Jesus has chosen me and has chosen us. And even with all that we do to one another and do to the Creation that God has put all around us, God’s adoring gaze still falls upon us. So before getting into the response of what that should bring in us (and it should bring a response)...first sit. Be silent. Be still. Take in the adoring gaze of the One who created you.