Whenever

Whenever...

On this weekend morning when the “feels like” temperature, according to the National Weather Service, is -25, and the cultural temperature is colder still, I resolve to look for the presence of God:

 

“WHENEVER the mind of a person has been uplifted; 

 

whenever I have frustrated the temptation to deny the truth within me, or to betray a value which to me is significant; 

 

whenever I have found the despair of my own heart and life groundless;

 

whenever my resolutions to be a better person have stiffened in a real resistance against some form of disintegration; 

 

whenever I have been able to bring my life under some high and holy purpose that gives to it a greater wholeness and a greater unity; 

 

whenever I have stood in the presence of innocence, purity, love and beauty and found my own mind chastened and my whole self somehow challenged and cleansed; 

 

whenever for one swirling moment I have glimpsed the distinction between good and evil courses of conduct, caught sight of something better as I turned to embrace something worse; 

 

whenever these experiences or others like them have been mine, I have seen God, and felt His presence winging near.”

(Howard Thurman, Deep is the Hunger)