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听

In our kitchen, we have a fridge magnet that says, 鈥業鈥橵E FOUND JESUS! 鈥� HE WAS BEHIND THE SOFA THE WHOLE TIME!鈥� It鈥檚 a joke not everyone will appreciate, but beyond the gag, it reminds me that God is always closer than we think 鈥� in the ordinariness of life, mostly overlooked.

听I once set my congregation the task of drawing a picture of God in 2 minutes. Most people looked horrified, but the children dived in before I鈥檇 finished speaking. One child drew a grinning cat, another an intriguing genie popping out of a bottle with two faces, one male the other female. A grown-up made a picture of a dog with the words, 鈥楾he only thing that got me through the suffering.鈥� Seven-year-old Daniel brilliantly handed me a blank sheet and said, 鈥業t鈥檚 air, Dave. God is air.鈥�

听Daniel鈥檚 idea is close to mine. I think of God, not as a human-like figure in the heavens, far away, but like the atmosphere 鈥� an all-encompassing presence sustaining and animating all life, religious and non-religious. When an atheist friend told me, 鈥業 find the idea of 鈥渘ot-God鈥� energising鈥�, I replied, 鈥楤ut you see, I think your 鈥渘ot-God鈥� is the same as what I call 鈥淕od鈥� 鈥� the life-giving Spirit at the heart of everything.

听Some of the people I admire most aren鈥檛 particularly religious. I recently visited Brian at the request of his son. He only had a few days left on this mortal coil but we had a magnificent conversation about life and death. He said he wasn鈥檛 religious, yet he embodied the very essence of religion. Despite a severe disability he had worked tirelessly for the good of others, and exuded compassion and a warm, gritty wisdom.

听I asked Brian what he had learned from his seventy-odd years. He told me two things I won鈥檛 forget: that love is what makes a person great, and that bad things will pass so just keep doing good. It was a short-lived friendship but one I treasure.听

Between Brian and our fridge magnet, I learn not to look for God or the meaning of life in some lofty spiritual experience or profound truth, but in the ordinariness of a life well-lived.

听Morning prayers behind the sofa from now on!