Sometimes when I am walking around my neighborhood, I’ll see something unexpected. I don’t mean unexpected like a snake. More like something within nature that captures my attention and helps me see things in a new way. I am someone who looks for and finds heart-shaped items in nature- leaves, rocks, patterns in soil or tree bark. (If you have followed maryology, you know this!) And I know that the shape of a heart is basically a human invention and could mean anything. I know it is a symbol of love only because humans decided it should be…

But when I see these heart-shaped items out in the world I feel the presence of Love. It helps me realize that God can be sensed and found anywhere you look, anywhere you stumble. On a trail, hanging from a branch, even embedded in a sidewalk. 

And, having seen the holy under my feet or in the sky or floating in a creek, it makes me wonder if I can see it in other places, too. Like people.

Yes.

The infinite shows up for us in the finite. How else would we be able to see it at all? It shows up in soil and water, words and gestures, song and silence.

One day, in the flight of a bird, you might think of the Holy Spirit swooping into your life as a reminder that your prayers are lifted to God and God’s love flies to meet you.

One day, you might stumble across a heart-shaped rock and it will remind you that the immense love of God is also a gift small enough to hold in your hand or pass along to a friend. 

One day while dashing from your car to the entrance of a store, rain will fall on you and you will remember that you were baptized with water and it transformed you. 

The extraordinary is within the ordinary.
The ordinary reveals the extraordinary.

One day, as the sun is setting the light will strike the world around you in just the right way and for a moment everything will shine with a heavenly golden glow and you will feel in your soul that the holy is present in everything if you remember to look.