Wow, this is Good. For me, I experience the presence of God, both inside and outside the sanctuary. As a Catholic, daily and weekly mass is a high point centered on the Eucharist, or in Eucharistic Adoration, which typically occur in the church, but at the same time, I went hiking in the Colorado Rockies this week and prayed and wept and laughed with God's joy over all that I encountered physically and spiritually on the hike!
I saw this post in your year-end round-up--nicely said! You've very much captured the idea of what I'm seeking to express in fiction--my Substack is called Deus in Fabula (God in the Story), subtitled "a quest for spiritual, devotional, and mystical realism in fiction." A core idea of that "realism" is that God is present everywhere and that the experience of God's presence is available anywhere, anytime, to ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. As you've said, this is a truth in real life (and is what I experience myself), but it's not one I really see much in fiction.
Oh, sure, there's plenty of Christian fiction and the like, but very little of what I've read expresses the experience of God's living presence in, again, ordinary circumstances. And often what's there strikes me as more intellectual and psychological than spiritual, devotional, or mystical--all of which involve calm but powerfully deep feelings more so than merely thoughts or emotions. Such experience is challenging to express in words, of course, but that doesn't mean we can't try!
Anyway, thanks again--and I'll be restacking this post as it's so relevant to my newsletter.
Wow, this is Good. For me, I experience the presence of God, both inside and outside the sanctuary. As a Catholic, daily and weekly mass is a high point centered on the Eucharist, or in Eucharistic Adoration, which typically occur in the church, but at the same time, I went hiking in the Colorado Rockies this week and prayed and wept and laughed with God's joy over all that I encountered physically and spiritually on the hike!
This is phenomenal - shared with family and friends!
Thank you Rachel!
I saw this post in your year-end round-up--nicely said! You've very much captured the idea of what I'm seeking to express in fiction--my Substack is called Deus in Fabula (God in the Story), subtitled "a quest for spiritual, devotional, and mystical realism in fiction." A core idea of that "realism" is that God is present everywhere and that the experience of God's presence is available anywhere, anytime, to ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. As you've said, this is a truth in real life (and is what I experience myself), but it's not one I really see much in fiction.
Oh, sure, there's plenty of Christian fiction and the like, but very little of what I've read expresses the experience of God's living presence in, again, ordinary circumstances. And often what's there strikes me as more intellectual and psychological than spiritual, devotional, or mystical--all of which involve calm but powerfully deep feelings more so than merely thoughts or emotions. Such experience is challenging to express in words, of course, but that doesn't mean we can't try!
Anyway, thanks again--and I'll be restacking this post as it's so relevant to my newsletter.