How do you Know?

I was at a training event not long ago, and the trainer asked "How do you know when you are in the presence of God". All around the room, people sort of looked far away, and then nodded. As if they had an answer to this question. As one might expect- this was, after all, a professional development day for clergy. We are in the business of bringing people into the presence of God. As the same trainer said of us, "we make God come". We pronounce to the people, "God is with you". We bless them. We proclaim the Word and preside over the sacraments in which God makes the Divine Self known to God's people.

If anyone should know when they are in the presence of the Almighty- surely it is your friendly local parish Priest.

I don't know if, outside the ranks of the clergy, most people have a ready answer to that question. I know that I didn't. I don't.

There is a woman I know who often weeps, overwhelmed by emotion during the liturgy. She could probably tell you how she knows she's in the presence of God- how she feels. What particular catch in the throat or tremor in the chest signals her awareness of the Divine Presence within or around her. We've talked about it. Something about worship in community- that sense of connectedness with both the people around her, and the community of saints. It is real for her- she is touched by it, with startling regularity.

It isn't like that for me.

I mean, once or twice I've been known to get weepy during the liturgy. Sometimes even when I'm not pregnant. I just don't know if I equate that sort of verklempt state with anything particularly sacred. Sometimes I'm just weepy. Sometimes I've slept badly, and my emotions get frayed around the edges. Sometimes a catch in the throat is just a catch in the throat, you know?

But it is also true that sometimes, when I'm preaching, I feel myself getting caught up. Like, I hear the words come out of my mouth, and I realize as I'm saying them that I mean them more than I realized, that these words feel True to me. (Not, I hasten to add, that I consider most of my words to be false. But some true things are more True than others, and if that needs further unpacking it'll have to wait for another day)

This is connected, for me, with the simple truth that the manuscript for a sermon is not the same thing as a Sermon. When these moments do happen, they happen in the act of preaching-- but every once in a while I receive (as a gift?) a fleeting sense that the struggle to find words to respond to the Word of God was not, in fact, fruitless; that I have stumbled upon truth, or comfort, or hope- usually despite myself.

Not despite myself. This only happens when the struggle was real. Some weeks that manuscript-that-is-not-a-sermon is created at Penuel. Some weeks I have neither the time nor the will to fight.

It is not a full answer to the question, "how do I know when I am in the presence of God".

But it is a partial answer to other questions that lie close to my heart. Why am I a priest? What am I doing with my time? my energy? my life?

I am a preacher. I preach. And in doing so, every once in a while, I stumble into the presence of God.