Collision with God

One winter I ordered a Radio Flier sled from the Sears catalogue, and I rode that sled down runs we fashioned in the backyards near Ash Street, bumping and sprawling and hanging on, the sled a fragile line of control on the beaten path.

Sometimes I would slam into a snow bank or an obstacle. One moment I was whizzing along our bobsled run and the next smacked into something and flipped, sprawled on my back, watching the tilted sky seem to move.

When I found God, it was like that too. I was minding my own business, just a kid, curious about Him, and then, wham! He found me, and the collision with Him was scary, like slamming into a snow bank on the bobsled run.

Sometimes His presence is like the frothy, foaming ocean tides, cleansing and warm with a secret, primal energy. There is mystery in this moving, living water that has been a presence in the world during all our history here.

As we ride this planet, we are creatures on a world that sails silently in its special orbit. We are here, contemplating who we are and where and when, but somehow we have lost our sense of God.

The sun spins golden energy through the atmosphere. Softly in the morning or near dusk, it has lit on leaf and stem, calming us, though we seldom pause to notice. As our planet moves through shadow, such softness is here, and oxygen, an intimate gift of breath and life. And there is light from that star furnace fueling life on our world. It warms, calms, covers with measures of energy and promise.

Like the ocean, it has been our constant companion. Some worshiped it. There were cultures with sun gods, as there were gods of the wind and air. There was Poseidon of the sea, of course. There were many and we have these myths collected in paperbacks on our shelves.

Today it is fashionable to doubt that God exists, except in imagination, and we say God is the product of weak minds needing comfort, reassurance, or crutches to hobble on. Some believe that this One is the same as the pagan gods, that all is superstition, messy and ridiculous. Many feel we have moved beyond superstitious reports that God is in the universe. We suspect that it is possible to move on now, dusting our hands as from a messy, necessary task. We are proud and feel that we can begin to put all that behind us.

And yet I slammed headlong into God racing down that bobsled run, sprawled on my Radio Flier sled, barely maintaining any control along the packed snow path. I found God, who shadows us, always present as we struggle on our planet. In the subtle cooling of the air as shadow falls, night rises with some thing that moves deliberately, steadily toward us.

Reminds me of how water rises, or snow on those calm gray winter days when the air fills with fluttering shadows. I tip my head and watch them, millions of them coming down. Slowly they fill the world and change it. As dusk arrives, there is a transition from one sort of time to another.

When you think about it, shadow marks much of our experience in the world. This planet is in shadow much of the time. Night rises. Our planet turns slowly, slightly tilted on its axis. We orbit the sun and always have.

I decided long ago that I would at least attempt to describe the experience and to create a portrait of God as I have come to know Him. I want to sketch the world as I see it after encounters with Him. Along the way, ideas form about who we have been and what we are becoming.