Whales
“This is a God-bathed and God-permeated world.”
[i] Dallas Willard
“All the things in this world are created because of God’s love and they become a context of gifts, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.”
[ii] St Ignatius of Loyola
We live within a “context of gifts”. Sometimes that’s apparent to me. Other times, I lose sight. When life is busy, loud, common, or crowded, my connection with God and the reflection of God in the world can feel spotty at best. So, I take my cue from a long line of others, including Jesus, who step away momentarily – seeking stillness, silence, and solitude – to tend my soul that needs connection with God. I need to regularly experience, not just intellectually agree, that this is a God-bathed, God-permeated world. A felt connection with God informs, forms, and feeds me.
In a world notorious for busy, loud or just stringently routine, it’s helpful to share experiences of this God-bathed, God-permeated world we live in together. And so, I’d like to lend you my recent encounter, and allow it room to inform, perhaps form, and feed us.
In August, I boarded a small ship in Alaska for a circuitous journey through the Inside Passage, where we would meander – adjust our path and pace to whatever we encountered on the way. Meandering allows for interruptions, and the first arrived on Day One around 4:30pm. A sighting of killer whales from the bridge engulfed me in a crowd, a mass of excited people making our way above deck to see for ourselves.
