Imagine yourself on a sunny day standing in a waterfall. The water is warm but refreshing. It cascades and envelops you, filling you with love and deep peace, washing away your thoughts and revealing an expansiveness that flows from your soul. This water is God.

You can imagine God as a being who created the world, a father, a mother, a web of energy interlocking us, a waterfall seeping into you. Any form of what I call God or you call Oneness, the Universe or Mystery comes from the imagination and yet is real, coming alive through sacred experiences and stories.

Some of us have been lucky enough to experience moments of true peace, true oneness, true joy, connection, knowing. We name this experience – I name mine God. The experience becomes the touchstone of our faith. It carries a feeling so profound that it shifts our understanding of all life, our life, all that is. It orients us deeper into love and gratitude.

We want to tell others about it, to share the experience but we don’t know how. How to put words to Mystery without sounding trite? Love, peace, blah, blah, blah. But we try, I try, I’m trying now with this little blog, with the children and teens I work for at church because I hope more people open to this experience.

And I’m trying to do it while being real. I experience God and the centeredness that comes with it – but I also experience irritation, fear, depression. Sometimes I’m thoughtless, impatient, rude. Plus, I’m a Southside Chicago girl at heart –  I talk rough, am too confrontational, have a dry, dark sense of humor. I’m rebellious.  I’m still me.

I also have this waterfall of sacredness that I sometimes notice enveloping me. I draw from it even in these scary times of disease and distancing. It helps me be kinder, less fearful.

I hope you can draw from it too.