God-bathed

“It is like a physical landscape at sunrise: it is not that you see the same things that you saw before and now find yourself seeing the sun as well. You see everything sun-bathed. Similarly it is not a case of seeing the same universe as other people and then seeing God over and above. For God is at the centre of the being of everything whatsoever. If we would see the universe aright, we must see it GOD-bathed.”

-Theology and Sanity, Frank Sheed

Above is a picture I took while hiking alone in the foothills. A couple of weeks ago I picked up and headed out late on a Sunday afternoon, fed up with the apathy of too long and lazy a weekend.

I drove past fields, a lake, cattle, towns, a casino, camps, parks, people. I drove off the road and onto the track and I drove until there was no more driving. Then I walked. First I started fitness trackers. Can’t let a workout go to waste. Then I started headphones. Jam in a podcast or audiobook to make use of the time.

I was jittery from the transition from sound to no sound. That jittery feeling is uncomfortable. When we feel uncomfortable we seek comfort. When we seek comfort we seek the familiar. And what is familiar? For me that covering of reassurance is media. Reach for your phone, scroll on Instagram, consume new media, feel a new feeling. Fight the discomfort at all cost.

This distraction is blinding us from God. The force that holds everything. We exist at all times and every moment in suspended animation, tied together by the force that is Him. “Through Him, with Him and in Him.” The grass underfoot, the breeze on your face, the air on your skin, the clouds spreading, the car, the road the town the sun. We give ourselves to God when we submit with abandon to what is.

We see everything as sun-bathed. But it is not God-bathed. It is God.