Transcendence and Immanence – Lessons from the Garden

A prayer

We come to you, the Transcendent and the Immanent One.

Transcendence

Your transcendence I glimpse when I gaze at the sky.

My perspective is limited by time and place.

Your perspective is universal and eternal.

Immanence

Your immanence I glimpse when I gaze at a raindrop.

Generation after generation of tiny lives are lived out in a tree by my front door. That, too, gives us a glimpse of you, the Author of Life.

Our lives

Nothing takes you by surprise. Every detail of our days, delightful or devastating, you see. You don’t pull puppet strings to control us. Yet you see not only what fills our days but even what fills our hearts.

When the rain is falling, life is crumbling, and there seems to be no way forward, you know.

When the sun is shining, the salvia is blooming and I’m stretched out on the grass with a camera and a cat, you know.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:16 NIV

Aphids and other analogies

Even the plight of the creature that I unwittingly brought inside, tinier than the point of my pen, you see … or perhaps that should be ‘saw’. I tried to carefully put it back outside from whence it came, but fear I was not careful enough.

You even know about that minuscule mishap (though it was calamitous for the aphid).

How much more do you care for us, ‘the sheep of your pasture’?

(‘The sheep of God’s pasture’ is an analogy from Psalm 79:13, with which I’m not so familiar. I’m more familiar with bugs and roses.)

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!

Psalm 139:17 NIV