Winter Theme

Beginnings and Contemplation: Exploring the
mystery and interconnectedness of God, creation and humanity

God as Ground of Being: The ultimate source and foundation of existence

Sunday Awe

The concept of God as the “Ground of Being” invites us to move beyond images of God as a distant, anthropomorphic deity and to instead consider the Divine as the ultimate source and foundation of all that exists. This term is attributed to theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965), although the concept was also explored by the 13th-century German mystic Meister Eckhart and many others. The Ground of Being portrays God not as a being among other beings, but as Being itself—the very essence and sustaining power underlying everything in creation

To understand God as the Ground of Being is to recognize that existence itself is rooted in the Divine. This perspective suggests that all things—living and nonliving—derive their reality and purpose from this eternal source. In this framework, God is not separate from creation but is intimately interwoven with it, serving as the life-force that sustains and permeates all. As the apostle Paul expressed, “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and “God is through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).

This view profoundly impacts how we relate to God, ourselves, and the world. If God is the Ground of Being, then every aspect of existence becomes sacred. The interconnectedness of life is not merely a poetic idea; it is a spiritual truth. When we embrace this perspective, we come to see that our lives are not lived apart from God but in God, who is the source of all love, beauty, and meaning.

Understanding God in this way also dissolves the dualism that often separates the sacred from the secular. Every moment, every breath, and every particle of existence testifies to the presence of the Divine. By attuning ourselves to this reality, we begin to experience a deeper awareness of God as the ever-present foundation of our lives and the universe itself.

To live in light of God as the Ground of Being is to awaken to the mystery of existence, to stand in awe of the infinite source from which all life flows, and to embrace the sacredness inherent in all that is. It is a call to live with deeper awareness, gratitude, and love for the interconnected web of life sustained by the Divine.

Monday Awe: God as the Ground of All Existence

  • St. Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” (Confessions)
  • Paul Tillich: “God is not a being alongside others but the ground of all being, the power of existence itself.” (The Courage to Be)
  • Meister Eckhart: “God is the foundation from which all things flow and the source to which all return.”
  • Rumi: “Beyond form and thought is the essence of the Beloved, the foundation of all that is.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • Tao Te Ching 1: “The Tao is the source of all things, the nameless ground of existence.”
  • Acts 17:28: “For in him we live and move and have our being.” (NIV)
Question to Ponder: What does it mean to you for God to be the Ground of Being?
Action to Take: Spend a moment in quiet reflection, contemplating God as the Ground of Being.

Tuesday Awe: God as the Infinite Foundation

  • St. Gregory of Nyssa: “God is the infinite depth from which all being springs, sustaining all in unity.” (Life of Moses)
  • Julian of Norwich: “God is the foundation of love, holding us in being and sustaining us always.” (Revelations of Divine Love)
  • Thomas Merton: “The ground of being is God’s presence, which gives life to all that is.” (No Man Is an Island)
  • Rumi: “The Beloved is the infinite sea from which all rivers flow and to which they return.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • Colossians 1:17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (NIV)
Question to Ponder: How does recognizing God as the infinite foundation shape your sense of purpose?
Action to Take: Identify one area of life where you can lean on God as the foundation of your life.

Wednesday Awe: God as the Source of Life and Being

  • St. Teresa of Ávila: “God is the wellspring of life, the source from which our being is nourished.” (Interior Castle)
  • Simone Weil: “God is the unchanging ground of all things, a reality deeper than thought.” (Gravity and Grace)
  • Rabindranath Tagore: “The eternal foundation of life is God’s presence, holding all things in harmony.” (Gitanjali)
  • Rumi: “God is the unseen root that nourishes the tree of existence.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • The Upanishads 2.1.1: “The eternal essence is the foundation of life; it pervades all existence.”
  • Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”
Question to Ponder: How do you feel knowing that God is the source of your life?
Action to Take: Spend time outdoors, in awe of God as the unseen root of all you see.

Thursday Awe: God as the Sustainer of Being

  • St. Irenaeus: “God holds all things in existence by His will and love.” (Against Heresies)
  • Henri Nouwen: “We live because God sustains us; we are rooted in His being.” (Life of the Beloved)
  • Thomas Aquinas: “God alone is existence itself, the sustainer of all being.” (Summa Theologica)
  • Rumi: “The Beloved sustains the stars, the earth, and the heart of every soul.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • Tao Te Ching 25: “The Tao sustains all things, yet seeks nothing for itself.”
  • Hebrews 1:3: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (NIV)
Question to Ponder: How can you rest in the knowledge that God sustains all things?
Action to Take: Reflect on an area of your life where you need to trust in God’s sustaining presence.

Friday Awe: God as the Mystery of Being

  • St. John of the Cross: “The essence of God is mystery, the infinite depth that calls the soul to union.” (The Dark Night of the Soul)
  • Julian of Norwich: “In the mystery of God’s being, we find our peace and purpose.” (Revelations of Divine Love)
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “God’s being is the mystery that surrounds and permeates our existence.” (Letters and Papers from Prison)
  • Rumi: “God is the hidden treasure, the mystery that draws the heart ever closer.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • Rig Veda 10.129.2: “In the mystery of the Eternal, all things have their origin and find their end.”
  • Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (NIV)
Question to Ponder: How does the mystery of God’s being invite you into deeper awe?
Action to Take: Take a moment to sit in silence, embracing the mystery of God’s presence in your life.

Saturday Awe: God as Ground of Being

  • Paul Tillich: “God is not a being alongside others but the ground of all being, the power of existence itself.” (The Courage to Be)
  • St. Gregory of Nyssa: “God is the infinite depth from which all being springs, sustaining all in unity.” (Life of Moses)
  • Rumi: “God is the unseen root that nourishes the tree of existence.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • Henri Nouwen: “We live because God sustains us; we are rooted in His being.” (Life of the Beloved)
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “God’s being is the mystery that surrounds and permeates our existence.” (Letters and Papers from Prison)
  • Acts 17:28: “For in him we live and move and have our being.” (NIV)
Question to Ponder: How does God as the Ground of my being, change how I view life?
Action to Take: Take a moment to be in the Ground of Being.

The Practice of Stillness: Finding God in Silence and Contemplation

Sunday Awe

We live in a busy and noisy world. We can’t seem to go or be anywhere without background noise. At home, we have the TV, radio, or Alexa on. We have earbuds playing something while walking, running, or working out. While driving, we listen to podcasts or audiobooks. On planes, we watch movies. At restaurants, the music may be so loud that we can barely hear each other, and there are a dozen TVs to distract us. Our phones are always dinging, and social media is clamoring for our attention, rewarding us with tiny doses of dopamine. Even our meditations are guided.

Silence can be scary. My mind tends to race from one thing to another, or it becomes obsessed with something or rehearses a real or imagined conversation. It alternately congratulates and condemns me. As C.S. Lewis said in reference to his inner life, he found “a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds” (Mere Christianity).

We do everything we can to avoid silence because silence forces us to experience our pain. As Anna Lembke says in Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, “We’re all running from pain. Some of us take pills. Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. Some of us read romance novels. We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse.”

Though we run from it, stillness is what we all need. Henri Nouwen wrote, “In solitude, we find the space to let our restless hearts be touched by the quiet presence of God” (The Way of the Heart).

We all need our hearts to be touched by God. It is here that we find healing for our pain. It is here that we find peace. It is in silence that we can hear God.

As you approach this week, look for small opportunities to still your heart and mind. Below is a meditation that I first heard from James Findley, based on Psalm 46:10. Take a deep breath and slowly repeat the verse in your head, each time shortening it until you are left with the essence of being, which is complete stillness.

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

Monday Awe: Silence as God’s Language

  • Thomas Merton: “Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation.” (Thoughts in Solitude)
  • Evagrius Ponticus: “A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian. This is the way to behold the incomprehensible God.” (Chapters on Prayer)
  • Anthony the Great: “When you sit in silence, do not be afraid. In silence, God speaks to you.” (Sayings of the Desert Fathers)
  • Tao Te Ching 16: “Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace.”
  • Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Question to Ponder: How can silence open the door to God’s presence in your life?
Action to Take: Set aside five minutes of silence today, focusing on the words, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Tuesday Awe: The Stillness of the Soul

  • Julian of Norwich: “We need to be emptied of everything that is not God to truly encounter Him.” (Revelations of Divine Love)
  • Jean-Pierre de Caussade: “All revelation is born in silence and through silence, God’s will becomes clear.” (The Sacrament of the Present Moment)
  • The Cloud of Unknowing: “Learn to be at home in your own company; the path to God lies in the silent contemplation of His love.” (The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 6)
  • The Upanishads 2.3.11: “When the five senses are stilled, when the mind is at rest, when the intellect wavers not—that, say the wise, is the highest state.”
  • Isaiah 30:15: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.”
Question to Ponder: How does quieting your inner world create space for God’s presence?
Action to Take: Go a day without social media or some other distraction you normally engage in.

Wednesday Awe: Contemplation in Solitude

  • St. Symeon the New Theologian: “Silence brings the soul closer to the light of divine wisdom.” (Hymns of Divine Love)
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Silence before God is the essence of worship.” (Life Together)
  • Rumi: “Silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • The Rig Veda 5.81.1: “He who is still in silence, the Self of all, resides within every heart.”
  • Mark 1:35: “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed.”
Question to Ponder: What role does solitude play in your spiritual life?
Action to Take: Take a walk alone, dedicating the time to silent prayer.

Thursday Awe: Finding Rest in God

  • Henri Nouwen: “In solitude, we find the space to let our restless heart be touched by the quiet presence of God.” (The Way of the Heart)
  • Isaac of Nineveh: “Love silence above all things, for it brings you near to the fruit of the Spirit.” (Ascetical Homilies)
  • Jean-Luc Marion: “God is not a being among beings; He is excess itself, encountered only in our surrender.” (God Without Being)
  • Odes of Solomon 8:14-16: “Open your hearts to the exultation of the Lord, and let your love abound from the heart and mouth to Him.”
  • Habakkuk 2:20: “But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
Question to Ponder: How does resting in God’s presence change your heart?
Action to Take: Take five minutes today to sit in God’s presence without words, simply resting in His love.

Friday Awe: The Gift of Quiet Contemplation

  • Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Pensées, Section 136)
  • Gregory the Great: “In contemplation, the soul is raised up above itself and is held near to the light of truth.” (Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 2.27)
  • St. Anthony the Great: “The one who abides in solitude and is quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking, and seeing. Yet against one thing he must constantly battle: his own heart.” (Sayings of the Desert Fathers)
  • William Wordsworth: “And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils—in perfect silence.” (I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)
  • Lamentations 3:26: “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
Question to Ponder: How does silence help you perceive God’s presence in your daily life?
Action to Take: Reflect on how you can make silence a part of your daily spiritual practice.

Saturday Awe: The Practice of Stillness: Finding God in Silence and Contemplation

  • Anthony the Great: “When you sit in silence, do not be afraid. In silence, God speaks to you.” (Sayings of the Desert Fathers)
  • The Cloud of Unknowing: “Learn to be at home in your own company; the path to God lies in the silent contemplation of His love.” (The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 6)
  • Henri Nouwen: “In solitude, we find the space to let our restless heart be touched by the quiet presence of God.” (The Way of the Heart)
  • Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Pensées, Section 136)
  • Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Question to Ponder: What am I afraid of that keeps me from being still?
Action to Take: Turn your phone off for an hour or two or a day and see how you feel.

Unknowing: The Way of Knowing

Sunday, January 12, 2025: Unknowing: The Way of Knowing

This week we dive deeper into the Mystery of the Divine. There is a 14th century work titled, “The Cloud of Unknowing,” whose authorship is unknown. The underlying message of the book is that our thoughts about God can actually be a hinderance in knowing God and that the path to know God is to let go of who and what we think God is. By surrendering our conceptions and “unknowing,” we may begin to glimpse the nature of God and come to know him by love. The author says it better:

For He can well be loved, but he cannot be thought. By love he can be grasped and held, but by thought, neither grasped nor held. And therefore, though it may be good at times to think specifically of the kindness and excellence of God, and though this may be a light and a part of contemplation, all the same, in the work of contemplation itself, it must be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting.

It might be easier to think of this on a human level. Have you ever had an image of what someone was like? But, when you meet them, you find out they are not as you thought? If you hang on to your preconceived idea, you have an internal conflict between your image and your experience. It will create distrust and you will not be able to really know this person.

It is the same way with God. In fact, a lot of people experience cognitive dissonance between their experiences of Gods grace and love and what they have been taught. As a result, their relationship remains fractured or distant with their Creator. But, if we are able to let go of what we think about God and instead focus on loving God, we will have an entirely different experience. We need to know less about God and more of knowing God.

Our beliefs about God can become idols in a very real sense. An idol is a representation of a deity, and the more certain we are that we fully understand God, the more deeply we engrave that image into our minds. This certainty risks violating the spirit of the first commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image.” Words, pictures, ideas, and imaginations are merely representations—they are not the reality itself. When we place too much trust in our limited understanding, we move further from true understanding. It is only by acknowledging our limitations and letting go of certainty that we can open ourselves to a deeper, truer experience of the Divine.

This week, consider what you might need to un-know to know God better.

Monday, January 13, 2025: Letting Go of Certainty

  • Meister Eckhart: “To reach the God beyond all knowing, a person must pass beyond everything comprehensible and dwell in unknowing.”(Sermons and Treatises, Volume I)
  • Simone Weil: “We know God only by unknowing Him.” (Waiting for God)
  • Nicholas of Cusa: “God is not attained by knowledge, but by the absence of it.” (De Docta Ignorantia)
  • Gregory of Nyssa: “The mind, by withdrawing from what is visible, comes to know the invisible.” (The Life of Moses)
  • Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”
Question to Ponder:How might surrendering your need for certainty open the door to deeper trust in God?
Action to Take: Sit in prayer and offer God your uncertainties, asking for the grace to trust Him beyond understanding.

Tuesday, January 14, 2025: The Path of Negative Theology (What God isn’t)

  • Dionysius the Areopagite: “The cause of all is neither soul nor mind… It is beyond assertion and denial.” (The Divine Names, Chapter 1)
  • John of the Cross: “To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing.” (The Ascent of Mount Carmel)
  • The Cloud of Unknowing: “By love, God may be gotten and holden; but by thought, never.” (The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 4)
  • Job 28:12, 28: “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? … Behold, the fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”
Question to Ponder: What does it mean to embrace God as the One who cannot be defined?
Action to Take: Spend time meditating on the name of God, allowing its mystery to fill your heart.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025: The Wisdom of Unknowing

  • St. Augustine: “God is best known in unknowing; in loving Him, we experience the truth of His essence.” (Confessions)
  • Maximus the Confessor: “God is infinite and incomprehensible, and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility.” (Ambigua to John, 10)
  • Tao Te Ching 1: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.”
  • Søren Kierkegaard: “To truly understand, we must first unlearn all that we think we know.” (Concluding Unscientific Postscript)
  • Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”
Question to Ponder: How can unknowing lead you closer to the infinite God?
Action to Take: Read Ecclesiastes 3:11 and reflect on what it means to hold eternity in your heart.

Thursday, January 16, 2025: Ascending the Mountain of Unknowing

  • Evagrius Ponticus: “Silence is the mystery of the age to come.” (Chapters on Prayer)
  • Henri Nouwen: “The mystery of God lies not in what we know but in what we cannot know.” (The Way of the Heart)
  • St. Teresa of Ávila: “The closer one comes to God, the less one understands.” (The Interior Castle)
  • Bhagavad Gita 18:66: “Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me.”
  • Psalm 145:3: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”
Question to Ponder: What does it mean to “surrender unto” God in unknowing?
Action to Take: Sit quietly with Psalm 145:3, repeating the words, “His greatness is unsearchable.”

Friday, January 17, 2025: Unknowing as Faith

  • Karl Rahner: “The incomprehensible God can only be approached by the path of unknowing faith.” (Foundations of Christian Faith)
  • Rabindranath Tagore: “The infinite lies in the surrender of all our finite selves.” (Gitanjali, Poem 46)
  • Rumi: “Don’t seek God in concepts; throw your net into the uncharted seas of silence.” (The Essential Rumi)
  • Nicholas of Cusa: “In silence, the mind enters the incomprehensible presence of the divine.” (De Docta Ignorantia)
  • Philippians 4:7: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Question to Ponder: How does faith thrive in the absence of full understanding?
Action to Take: Offer a prayer of surrender, asking God to fill your unknowing with His peace.

Saturday, January 18, 2025: Unknowing: The Way to Knowing

  • Meister Eckhart: “To reach the God beyond all knowing, a person must pass beyond everything comprehensible and dwell in unknowing.” (Sermons and Treatises, Volume I)
  • The Cloud of Unknowing: “By love, God may be gotten and holden; but by thought, never.” (The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 4)
  • Søren Kierkegaard: “To truly understand, we must first unlearn all that we think we know.” (Concluding Unscientific Postscript)
  • St. Teresa of Ávila: “The closer one comes to God, the less one understands.” (The Interior Castle)
  • Rabindranath Tagore: “The infinite lies in the surrender of all our finite selves.” (Gitanjali, Poem 46)
Question to Ponder: What else do I need to unknow, that I might know better?
Action to Take: Write down you think you know about God and offer it up as a sacrifice of your ignorance.

The Mystery of God--Exploring the Unfathomable Depths of the Divine

Sunday, January 5, 2025: The Mystery of God

This week we will be exploring that which goes beyond understanding. Modern religion often presents God dogmatically in a box: Here he is. This is what he is like. This is what he expects of you. This is what you need to believe, because THIS is the truth. The problem with that is, as St. Augustine said, “If you comprehend it, it is not God.”

What we think or believe about God is influenced by so many factors-our family, our culture, the media, the church or religion we grew up in or didn’t, our community and friends, teachers, what we read and our own experiences

Even the Bible paints more than one picture of God. As St. Paul wrote, “we seen now through a glass dimly.” The author of much of the New Testament admits ambiguity! So we have muddled images of God, even from scriptures. It becomes even murkier when viewed through our personal lens. It is sort of like looking up at the clouds. I see the shape of a lamb and you see a roaring Lion. It is the same cloud, but our perceptions differ.

One of my favorite mystics and theologians is Maximus the Confessor, who lived from 580 to 662. He was tortured and exiled for his beliefs by the church, but was later vindicated as a saint. He wrote extensively on the mystery of God. Here is a sampling of his thoughts:

God is infinite and incomprehensible, and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility.” (Ambigua to John, 10)

“He who has reached knowledge in the true sense and has been deemed worthy to dwell with God will no longer speak of God or see Him in terms of objects, but will contemplate Him beyond all objects and language.” (Chapters on Knowledge, 2.36)

“The entire cosmos participates in the mystery of God, who remains hidden and yet revealed in all things. Each creature speaks of God’s beauty, yet His essence is beyond all.” (Mystagogy, 1.6)

As you meditate on the Mystery of God this week, become Aware of your own preconceptions and assumptions about God. Wonder about God and the mysteries we cannot explain. Enjoy the Experience, Engage with the Ideas. Be willing to live in the question and with uncertainty. Be in AWE.

Monday, January 6, 2025: The Infinite Beyond Understanding

  • St. Augustine: “If you comprehend it, it is not God.” (Sermon 117 on the Gospel of John)
  • Thomas Aquinas: “The divine essence itself surpasses all the perfection that any intellect of a creature can grasp.” (Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 12, Article 7)
  • Gregory of Nyssa: “The divine nature is not to be grasped by the mind or comprehended by any word.” (The Life of Moses)
  • Dionysius the Areopagite: “We pray that we may come to this darkness, beyond light, and, without seeing and without knowing, to see and to know what lies beyond vision and knowledge.” (The Mystical Theology, Chapter 5)
  • Job 11:7-9: “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know?” (NIV)

Question to Ponder:How does the incomprehensibility of God inspire reverence in your soul?

Action to Take: Write down three ways in which God’s mystery has influenced your faith journey.

Tuesday, January 7,2025: God Hidden in All Things

  • Hildegard of Bingen: “God is the mystery that moves through all things and transcends them.” (Scivias)
  • Julian of Norwich: “God is the unseeable, unknowable, and unreachable source of all that exists.” (Revelations of Divine Love)
  • Nicholas of Cusa: “The nature of God lies beyond the grasp of human reason.” (De Docta Ignorantia)
  • Rabindranath Tagore: “The infinite is not far from the finite; it is within it, ever elusive, ever revealing.” (Gitanjali, Poem 36)
  • Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

Question to Ponder: How do you see God hidden in creation?

Action to Take: Spend time observing nature today, contemplating how God reveals Himself through creation.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025: God Beyond Description

  • Plotinus: “The One is beyond all thought, all description, and all knowing.” (The Enneads)
  • Blaise Pascal: “The greatest of things are those whose essence is hidden.” (Pensées, Section 194)
  • St. John Chrysostom:“What mind can comprehend the infinite and ineffable God?” (Homilies on the Gospel of John)
  • Simone Weil: “God can only be present in creation as absence, as a space for the other.” (Gravity and Grace)
  • Romans 11:33: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

Question to Ponder: What does it mean for God to be beyond human language?

Action to Take: Reflect on the limits of your understanding and offer a prayer of surrender to God’s infinite wisdom.

Thursday, January 9,2025: The Mystery of the Self-Revealing God

  • Karl Barth: “God reveals Himself in mystery and conceals Himself in the revelation.” (Church Dogmatics)
  • Maximus the Confessor: “The entire cosmos participates in the mystery of God, who remains hidden and yet revealed in all things.” (Mystagogy, 1.6)
  • Teresa of Ávila: “He dwells in the interior castle, a mystery beyond the understanding of the soul.” (Interior Castle)
  • Bhagavad Gita 9:16-19: “I am the ritual and the sacrifice; I am the offering and the herbs. I am the chant and the sacred word; I am the butter and the fire and the offering it consumes.”
  • Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Question to Ponder: How does God’s self-revelation lead you to greater humility?

Action to Take: Meditate on the passage that speaks of God’s ways being higher than yours.

Friday, January 10,2025: The Unreachable Depths of God

  • St. Isaac the Syrian: “Silence is the mystery of the age to come; words are the instrument of this world.” (Ascetical Homilies)
  • Søren Kierkegaard: “God is that which is infinite and not to be comprehended.” (Philosophical Fragments)
  • Albert Einstein: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” (The World as I See It)
  • Tao Te Ching 1: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.”
  • 1 Corinthians 2:9: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love him.”

Question to Ponder: What role does mystery play in your relationship with God?

Action to Take: Write a prayer expressing awe at the mystery of God.

Saturday, January 11, 2025: The Mystery of God

  • Job 11:7-9: “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know?” (NIV)
  • Hildegard of Bingen: “God is the mystery that moves through all things and transcends them.” (Scivias)
  • St. John Chrysostom: “What mind can comprehend the infinite and ineffable God?” (Homilies on the Gospel of John)
  • Maximus the Confessor: “The entire cosmos participates in the mystery of God, who remains hidden and yet revealed in all things.” (Mystagogy, 1.6)
  • Tao Te Ching 1: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

Question to Ponder: How does the mystery of God engender AWE in your life?

Action to Take: Take a few minutes outside observing and wondering about the awesomeness of God and creation.

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