I wrote recently about my Christmas Cactus in which I reflected upon The Trinity (post: Out of One, Three).
….I bought a large scented candle a couple months ago. As the candle started to melt with use, I began re-purposing the scented wax toward another candle in an empty honey jar that had held honey I received at Christmas. I continued on; I have now re-purposed scented wax in one honey jar and two cinnamon jars.
Another Trinity story, somehow.
There’s going to be enough wax to fill another cinnamon jar, when I empty another small jar (continuing with the Trinity symbolism, we humans came along after the Trinity….).
The catechism of the Catholic church indicates that God had to be Trinitarian in nature. God is love; love by its’ very nature has to be shared. Before God had us to love, God shared love amongst God’s self in the trinity.
Today, God has us – God’s created and adopted daughters and sons – to love.
For us, experiencing God in the transcendent often seems beyond-the-ordinary; extraordinary.
Yet, God is Emmanuel – “God is with us.” I’ve experienced the transcendent, beginning with a grace-given God encounter in 2016 (there was an Irish homily and a broken ankle involved in the story….). …..We are also to encounter God in the ordinary course of our days. To the degree that we to learn to live the way God wants us to live – in right relationship with God – perhaps we could feel God’s love for us as being very, well, ordinary. Perhaps some people do.
These jars that are becoming re-purposed as scented candles are an example of experiencing God in the ordinary. An initial three jars (a honey jar and two cinnamon jars), bringing to mind the Trinity, to be joined later by a fourth jar – a cinnamon jar – that brings to mind that I as God’s adopted daughter received a jar of honey at Christmas and who also uses cinnamon in homemade muffins that I make for family and friends; giving and receiving, the senses of smell and taste. God is love, we are in turn called to love one another…. (“If anyone says they love God but hates their neighbor, they are a liar.” 1 John 4:20. “Which of the commandments is greatest?…..Love God and love your neighbor” Matthew 22:36-40 )
How do you see God in the ordinary, the every day aspects of your life?
Do you allow yourself to be still and experience those moments when God invites us to the transcendent?
How do you love your neighbor?
Kim Burkhardt blogs about faith at A Parish Catechist.
