When we are able to accept being accepted, able to receive the loving, listening presence of God b oth embodied in others and hidden in their hearts, we experience God as Love, resulting spontaneously in gratitude, praise and joy. I mean an upwelling of heart-breaking, heart-opening thankfulness and joy that such Love could be, that we could be in it, that it could be in us, that we are all in it together.
In my life-long impatience, how much I have missed. Last night, washing the dishes, I really looked at my iron frying pan in the dishwater. The light made visible for a moment a tiny rainbow—a light through water revealing all the colors of life. It is so easy to miss the tiny symbols. Finding them is quite different from the business of trying to hatch up big symbolic experiences. It is RECOGNITION, not PURSUIT, of meaning—recognition of the sacramental, of the intersection of the two worlds, breaking through unsought because one is ATTENDING.