The World Is A Holy Place: think about the stink bug

By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers… the world, this palpable world, to which we brought the boredom and callousness reserved for profane places, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

wait
wait on the world to tantalize
tickle my eyes
surprise my sober sensibilities
trace the tickle between my dusty toes
wait
wait something giggles
jiggles my insides
wiggles the Buddha’s chuckle
wait
wait stowaway stink bug
six-steps in my shadow
… Where did you get your shiny black armor?
… How did you hitch here from Japan?
… Why does your perfumer prefer pungent ammonia?
wait
wait I must venerate
your marbled shield
insists I adore your heraldry
wait
wait if the world is a holy place
shaped of the grit and guts of God
then even the stink bug heralds
earthy holiness

Poem by Debra Asis

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ’s quote is found in today’s selection in An Ignatian Book of Days by Jim Manney, SJ, a series of daily reflections from the Spiritual Wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Throughout the book we hear the voices of St. Ignatius as well as many great thinkers and writers, long gone and present day, each uniquely revealing the way of finding God in all things. And that is my intention; to find God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality in whatever presents itself to me each day in 2024.

Each day I read, reflect and write on the selection, hoping to articulate the ways in which I come to know God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality via personal experience, impelled by the leading of my inner life.

INVITATION

Would you like to join me? The book is accessible on Amazon. Let me know in the comments to this post and sign up to get an email whenever I post. I would love to read your reflections too, public or private messages welcome!

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Learn more about me at
https://www.debraasis.org

All words are generated by grace and the grit of a real human being,
Debra Asis