Verbish

 Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.  (Matthew 24:42)

Most certainly, God is a verb ... or at least verbish.

Were I still a parish pastor, right about now I would be preparing to lead a group of squirrely third graders through the basics of Holy Communion.

I would enter the room wearing my Indiana Jones fedora, ready to launch into the adventure it always was, not knowing what would come and doubting my ability to hold the attention of 8 and 9 year-olds. But I always knew, sooner or later, one of them would crack a joke at my expense or stump me with a question and reduce the room to raucous laughter.

I used to consider paying one or two of kids to make sure that happened at some point, so that they knew this was all about love, the love that brought us to that room and held us together as we learned—and as they opened their hands for the first time to receive ... and every time thereafter.

It never grew old, not once, not in all the years I stumbled through those sessions, always wanting to share just a little bit more to help them know what I knew every time I broke the bread and every time I opened my hands to receive what nothing on earth can hold.

That is done now, but remembering is a blessing beyond compare. Faces stream through my mind and heart, children I wish I could hug once more and let them know how much they are loved and how dearly I treasure every one of them, including those that were, well, a challenge.

Would to God that I could name them all ... from all the years, including the faces who have gone on before me, now knowing the Love I know only in part.

As we met and talked and laughed together in all those rooms through all those years, God was not an object outside of us to be known, but the flow of love and laughter among us. A verb not a noun. Or at least verbish.

And we were caught up in the flow, encompassed and carried in an all-possessing love.

Joy, healing, freedom, pretty much everything our hearts truly need is in that flow, so go with it. Wherever you go. It’s always there.

David L. Miller