Open Yourself to the Holy

July/August 2009

by Linda Johnson Seyenkulo

I heard a story about a famous writer, a monk, who was giving a lecture on spiritual disciplines. Many people came to hear him. His books and meditations were inspiring. He wrote about encountering the holy, about coming into the presence of God— beautiful words and ideas on how to develop a relationship with God through meditation and being present. As the story was told to me, he spoke eloquently and then opened the floor to questions. A young woman raised her hand and said, “I work full time outside the home, have three young children, and my husband travels for business.” She asked the wise man how she could encounter the holy when her life was so busy.

The writer paused and said thoughtfully, “I really have no idea.”

When I first heard this story, I was disappointed. That writer was one of my heroes. I had read many of his books, and I expected better of him. His response to the woman echoed an experience I had with a potential spiritual director. She asked me to describe my life, and when I outlined the hectic days of my life, she said “Oh, my!” The interview was soon over and I never went back to see her (although later I found another spiritual director who had a gift for seeing the holy in busyness). My quest for spiritual discernment and nourishment ended badly that day, but it started me on a new personal journey to find echoes of God’s grace and presence in the midst of my everyday, busy life.

Recognizing the holy in love

The most challenging part of the quest to encounter the holy is being present enough to recognize God’s grace and presence as it comes. It’s a process. As I reflect on some of my experiences with the holy in the midst of the busyness of life, I hope that they trigger some memories of how God has been present in your own daily life.

One of these “grace moments” came several years ago. Our two children were very small then: three years old and four months. My husband was in graduate school and working part time. I had a full-time position as a parish pastor. And my youngest brother, heart of my heart, was dying of AIDS: a long, slow, painful process. And his time was growing short. I flew out to the East Coast to help move him into a residential hospice, and when I got him settled and kissed him goodbye, I wasn’t sure I would ever see him again.

I returned home to anxious, needy children, an exhausted husband, and a car that needed to go to the shop. The children and I followed in one car as my husband drove the other to the mechanic, and as we waited for him to come out, I felt torn between my brother and his needs, my husband and children and their needs, and my own need to be in two places at once. I feared I was failing in all those relationships. Just then, our three-year-old got out of her car seat, crawled over the front seat, laid her head on my shoulder and said, “You’re a wonderful woman, Mommy.”

She was a gift of grace—God’s grace—30 pounds of pure love, love given with no expectation of perfection. Her expression of love reaffirmed the importance of relationship and that sometimes what you can give is enough.

Recognizing the holy in challenge

An encounter with the holy is not always all sweetness and light. God’s action in our lives can often bring with it challenge and criticism. It may be hard to hear but it brings some of God’s wisdom to light.

I’ll call her Heather. She was a pastor, a colleague, a bold and opinionated woman. We were working together on organizing to make our church and our synod anti-racist, an issue near and dear to both our hearts. We were working together to form a friendship across racial lines. I thought this would be perfectly straightforward; after all, we had similar interests and I saw myself as a very credible person in the friendship department. Then one day I said something thoughtless. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me; it was a very big deal to Heather. She let me have it. She let me know how wrong it was. She was hurt. I was hurt. We hung in there. Or rather, I should say, she hung in there with me and we worked through it.

Heather challenged me and was brutally blunt about my privilege in life and in our church. I came to see that the holy comes with a fire to burn away those things that keep us from being all that God has created us to be, from being able to be in authentic relationship with each other. The other thing I learned was the necessity to be vigilant in learning and keeping the lessons that God’s challenge brings.

Recognizing the holy in kindness

It was New Year’s Eve and we were driving to a relative’s home. It was almost midnight when my husband said, “I’m going to pull over the car so I can give you a New Year’s kiss.” Just as I was going to tell him to be careful, he pulled over and oops—we went sliding into the ditch. It was 11:58 p.m. on a below-zero New Year’s Eve night. There we were, stranded, with two kids in the car. Just then a man driving a pickup truck pulled up next to us. He said, “Looks like you need some help. I’ll go get my tow truck. It will take about 15 minutes, so don’t think I forgot you.”

Sure enough, 15 minutes later he was back with his tow truck. He pulled us out of the ditch and in another 10 minutes we were on our way. He refused to take any money for helping us. We speak of him as our New Year’s angel. Less than five miles down the road, we saw another car, unoccupied, in the ditch on the side of the road. My husband said, “If that hadn’t just happened to us, I would have judged them as drunk drivers.” You see, the holy continued to speak to us as we drove on, challenging us about making assumptions about others.

Recognizing the holy in the unexpected

The holy sometimes speaks in a crowd. Election night in Chicago last November was a time of holy encounter for me. Thousands and thousands of people—old, young, male, female, Black, White, Latino, Arab-American, Asian, and more—came together in Grant Park to celebrate. It felt like a holy event in this way: Everyone was genuinely happy and excited to be together. It was amazing— with all those people packed into downtown Chicago, there was no trouble, no fights, no arrests. It seemed that everyone got it—that it was a night to celebrate—not to violate. Peace and good will filled the air.

Holy encounters in our busy days do not always include other people. It can be as simple as the dog that asks to be petted, the snow day that keeps you snug at home, the small gift on your desk from a co-worker, the spring flower that pops up through the snow, a cardinal on the backyard bird feeder, the amazing array of faces you see on a city street. Can you think of others? The pheasant that flies up startled from the edge of a cornfield, the greeting card from one of your children, the long-lost friend who finds you by e-mail, the sermon that is just what you needed to hear, the song on the radio that takes you out of yourself? Encounters with the holy are plentiful, but the trick is to recognize them.

How can we cultivate that ability to recognize the holy? A life centered on the expectation that God is actively involved in all aspects of life is a way to start. The knowledge that God’s presence is not encountered only in meditation, silence, and prayer, but is actively engaged and working in the noisy, chaotic, busyness of human life. Start each day expecting to hear from God, expecting to have a holy encounter. Know deep in yourself that the holy is everywhere, even just around the corner.

Being open to the holy makes all of life lived on holy ground, where God’s redeeming work happens. Remind yourself that God is in your life—and you can expect to encounter the holy at any time and any place.

The Rev. Linda Johnson Seyenkulo is the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Park Forest, Ill. She lives in Chicago with her husband Jensen, their three children and a dog.