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23rd Day of Lent: Seeing God's Heart of Cosmic Generosity in Creation

When you hear the word generosity,  what is your first impulse?  


Is it to think of  generosity as a finite  "how much"  question? 


"How much" do I need to give? Or how much should I give to be (come) a generous person? 


God never asks "how much!"


Instead, He models extravagant, infinite, continuous cosmic generosity-

 It is on display everywhere in His visible creation.


Take a moment and ponder the universe.  

In our galaxy there are 100,000 million stars, like our sun. 


Our galaxy is one of 100,000 million galaxies.  


There are 25,000 varieties of orchids.  


And The orchid is just one of 270,000 species of flowers.  


God does not do things by halves. 


He multiplies- 


(like the fish and loaves, the land overflowing with milk and honey,  and the daily manna and quail).


This should disabuse us of the way we might look at God as tight-fisted and somewhat stingy in handing out gifts only in proportion to the amount we think we are pleasing Him.  


He is not distant and stingy.


Paul points us to this truth:  that God's invisible qualities and divine nature are clearly seen and can be understood from what he has made (Romans 1:20)


Every day we have opportunities to connect with God through His extravagant generosity in the natural world.  


Whether it is in the rhythm of a  sunrise, a squirrel running across a power line, a tree sprouting new life in a park, or a billowing cloud in the sky, we see God's generous handiwork beckoning us into closer alignment with Him, and His plan for each of us to play our part in restoring all of His creation back to him.Col 1.


When we lose touch with God's generosity as He has so freely gifted it to us in the natural world, we must ask ourselves whether we have become alienated and separated from the experience of "radical belonging.".... "we are trying to say to ourselves and others, "I belong here.  I matter."  Of course, you do!  But contrived and artificial means will never achieve that divine purpose.  We are naturally healed in this world when we know things center to center, subject to subject, and soul to soul."  


Much of the lives that we lead leave very little room for the experience of "radical belonging" with God's generous creation.  Our souls can become dormant, disconnected and lacking in grounding when we don't understand that God's connection and presence is as freely available as the air we breathe and the water we drink.  


God is not "out there."  


He is here EVERYWHERE...His glory shining through every continuing generous act of creation.  


And as Edwin Hubble the scientist revealed, and the telescopes in space named after him, continue to confirm:  the universe is still expanding....God's generosity is continuously unfolding!!!


We don't counter God's continually unfolding generosity with a "how much" answer,  but with a quest of a "new generous way of being"....


Our answer to his continuous generosity is the quest of....


BE-ing creative!


BE-ing interactive


BE-ing agape,


Give-ing, , uniting, being  whole, being  in every possible way, a new creation ourselves!"-


Our work in becoming a part of the new creation is co-creating with God's generosity- and it will never be about placating a distant or angry God, or earning forgiveness.


In essence God is saying, "I have created mirrors in which I consider all the wonders of my originality which will never cease." Hildegard de Bingen.


Nature is a mirror the the soul and for God.  This mirroring changes how we see and experience reality....


"Nature is not a mere scenic backdrop so humans can take over the stage.  


Creation is in fact a full participant in human transformation."


The whole world is a sacrament to God's generosity and when we connect with it, we will find "radical belonging"  that casts out fear, unworthiness, and guilt....


Delighting in God's cosmic generosity of resurrection and renewed life....playing an irreplaceable role in God's spectacular ecosystem, and opening the eyes of others to play their parts!  Exercpted from "Hope Against Darkness" by Richard Rohr


Prayer:  Eternally generous Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, open our eyes to see your generosity today- to experience the extravagance  of your beauty and freedom by  showing us through your Holy Spirit that you are the mighty way in which every thing that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth, is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness....radically belonging to you and all of your creation today-through our steps of co-creating with you in your generosity and making all things new by connecting our souls to yours in what you see-Gve us that vision to see ourselves as you see us- as radical belongers in your creation. 🙏🏻 Amen


Lyn Woodruff

River Prayer Reflections 

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