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sights & insights

sights & insights

Receptivity

Tom Soma

It was just before closing on a Saturday afternoon at the Fat City Café in Portland’s Multnomah Village. Finishing her shift, the waitress laughed, “Now I’m going to church.” Noticing the puzzled look on my face, she pointed to the adjacent pub and winked. Then I laughed. “That’s what I used to tell my kids, too,” she added.

Several days later, I asked a Franciscan nun where she finds God. “In rural Vermont,” she quickly replied. “In the young students at our Montessori School,” she said after further thought. “And at our community home in the Columbia River Gorge.” Conspicuously, she didn’t mention church. 

I’m most struck by Matthew Bierschbach’s observation the night after Thanksgiving. We met over a potluck dinner at St John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. Taking up where my Franciscan friend left off, he said, almost sheepishly, “There’s no place God isn’t.” He continued, “The connection to God is more like a volume control than a plug.” When I asked if he meant a tuning dial that could be adjusted to find the right station, he countered, “No—there’s more than one right station. There are many stations—different frequencies for different folks. The sound just gets louder or softer depending on our receptivity.” 

That reminded me of Rilke’s advice to the young poet. “If your everyday life seems poor,” Rilke wrote, “don’t blame it; blame yourself, admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches, because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place.”

Cultivating such receptivity—recognizing that there is no poor, indifferent place—isn’t easy. Especially this time of year, when it seems each task I complete on my holiday “TO DO” list is replaced by two new ones.

And yet, if I’m to believe Matthew, there’s no place God isn’t. Tuning in—and turning up the volume—is ultimately up to me.