Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote
“Earth’s crammed with heaven
each common bush aflame with God
Yet only he (sic) who sees, take off his (sic) shoes.”

If Divine Presence is everywhere
(“every common bush”)
can it be surmised that
there is *nowhere*
that Divine Presence, God, the Creator isn’t?

I love reading the letters
“n o w h e r e“

They can say “no where.” AKA “it cannot be found.”
They can say “now here.” AKA “it is evident.”

Many want to believe in miracles, yet few believe they exist.
To them, miracles are
… “no where.”

Maybe they are looking for the magnificent, the stupendous, the WOW.

And in doing so, they miss the miracle-in-the-ordinary
… the “now here.”

When we take our ‘shoes off’
and become like a child about to wade into a cool brook,
we see the minnows in the water,
the eagle flying overhead,
the smile on the faces of those around us.

We hear the laughter of others and breathe fresh air into our lungs.

We experience the Divine-in-the-ordinary, and also in the commonplace, in the mundane, in “every common bush.”

Miracles.

I want a miracle for my friends, diagnosed with final stages of cancer. I want a miracle for my neighbouring country in the death-throes of political upheaval.

I want a miracle for the world that continues to struggle with COVID and now re-emergence of polio and new emergence of Monky Pox.

I want a miracle for the people of Ukraine and American women who cannot get an abortion even if they were raped or if their own life is in jeopardy.

I want more than glimmers of hope. I want miracles!
I want to experience “each common bush aflame with God.”

I guess it’s up to me, and each of us, to find the glimmers of hope
in ‘possibility’ and not inevitability.

I guess it’s up to each of us to decide whether it’s
“shoes on – or shoes off.”

© June Maffin
https://soulistry.com
https://soulistry.com/blog
www.medium.com’@junemaffin