omnipresent

i remember learning about God being omni present in sunday school. that meant that he was everywhere at once all the time. i assumed i was suppose to take it literally...

but then i learnt that non-christians didn't have god inside them,
and normal things like food and pillows and tv didn't have god inside them (but maybe the occasional demon)
and then i learnt that bad things like porn movies couldn't possibly have god inside them,
and for that matter dogs and cats and other bits of boring nature probably didn't have god inside them either

which left me seriously questioning what exactly 'omnipresent' actually meant.

about six months ago i read Bill Bryson's short history of just about everything (science book). he talked about the structure of the atom and how all atoms in all the universe, not matter what their role or function, no matter if they are liquid, solid or gas, alive or 'dead', all atoms dance to the same cosmic energy. their electrons whizz around blatantly defying the laws of physics. hmmm. i wondered if perhaps god was behind this mystery.

'one of the most wonderful metaphors in jewish mysticism is the teaching on the Shekinah (god's glory). The Shekiah takes the form of a woman and usualy plays God's wife, but she is in exile. God and his glory have been tragically separated through the fall. the separation is one of a cosmic crash in which god's glory was scattered into a myraid of sparks and caught up in all created matter. the holy sparks are now imprisoned in all things. even the lowest of created things have the holy sparks in them.

the remarkable aspect of this jewish teaching is the view that it is our holy actions that actually free the holy sparks ensnared in all things allowing the exiled Shekinah to journey back to God. God and his glory are joined together when people act in holiness. says martin buber, "the Shekinah is banished into concealment; it lies, tied, at the bottom of every thing, and it is redeemed in every thing by man, who, by his own vision or deed, liberates the thing's soul." ' (paraphrased from the shaping of things to come)

so surely to the scientist, the jewish mysticist, even the christian, this is a divine universe.