The Surprise Theophany

An important aspect of Celtic, or Creation, spirituality is the "dailyness" of surprise: living with a vibrant sense of anticipation. One might compare this anticipation as similar to a child's day of celebration for her birth: and the unexpected delights that are given by her family in gratitude and blessing. This anticipation is the always-and-everywhere-presence of the Divine Beloved: the Light Energy upon which all of creation is constructed...

A "Celtic secret" is the cultivation of this attitude / perspective of the always-and-everywhere-presence of the Divine Beloved: in our daily lives. Do you see the light in the sky? Do you see the vista of blue and cloud? Do you see those magnificent "heaven-stones"? Do you see the carpet of magenta flowers? And then looking within, do you recognize the Face of the One gazing back at you -- through your own eyes? In the eyes of your family, your neighbor, in every single "other"? This seeing is precisely why St. Hildegard of Bingen wrote and spoke so forcefully for justice: why St. Francis of Assisi could embrace and kiss the lepers: and why Dorothy Day could announce with such certainty, in keeping with the words of her Master, "whatsoever you do to the least person among you" you / we do the very same to him, to Yeshua the Poet of Nazareth, our brother...

In his book, The Rebirthing of God, author John Philip Newell quotes John Scotus Eriugena as writing that the Light of God is the "essence of all things". And Newell goes on to write, "everything should be regarded as a theophany, a showing or revealing of the Divine". This outlook follows after the shifting of our in-look to one of a child's anticipation. To make of our daily lives an anticipation of the surprise theophany is to consecrate our everyday-moments with a deeply cherished sense of gratitude and delight. This changes everything! When global economics and politics are transformed from greed and grasping into the asking of "how can I help?" everything will change! When we look at the serious likelihood of global climate change and the very real possibility of global catastrophe through the lens of the Celtic Question "how can we regenerate the Earth and serve the children seven generations forward?" everything will change!

The Surprise Theophany is the gracious re-ordering of of our perspectives and attitudes all the way from "me" to "us" -- and an "us" that includes everyone and everything, leaving no one behind and nothing left out. Such a surprise theophany is neither "Right" nor "Left", but rather, profoundly interior. By looking within to the Divine Light that holds us -- everyone and everything -- in It's embrace, we can enthusiastically give our "Oh yeah!" or "Amen!" to St. Hildegard's saying "God hugs us from the inside out". Also, by intentionally cultivating this contemplative way of life (regardless of where we live and who we are), we ready ourselves for the transformations that are our birthright as the children of the One, the Light, the Divine Beloved...