Stewardship of Awareness

Stewardship of Awareness

Seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6: 33

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

On Sunday, May 29 Meredith Jackson gave a wonderful sermon on the Lilies and the Birds. She spoke of the futility of worry and how we learn to trust in God, freeing us for compassionate action in the world. She is right on. The scripture from Matthew plus Meredith’s words got me thinking about the above verse from Matthew. It reminded me of the poem by Blake. It occurs to me: it is all about our awareness, seeing the world in a grain of sand, heaven in a wild flower, indeed, eternity in an hour.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Matthew 6: 24 - 34 is all about worry, how we give energy to the ‘small stuff’ in our lives, somehow forgetting that God provides well for us in each moment of our lives. You could say that this passage is about stewardship, how we mind our awareness from day to day. Is it business as usual, sweating the small stuff, trying to control our lives and everything that happens to us? Or, is there a more excellent way? A welcoming way? as we pay attention to God’s presence in all of life? I vote the latter. As does Jesus. By paying attention to God’s presence in all of life, we become aware of the eternal that is present in each moment of every day, “eternity in an hour.” When we have that awareness, we have everything.

Summer: Practicing the Presence

For me summertime is a time of warmth and beauty. Time lengthens as spaces appear between things. Here is the opportunity we have for prayer, to practice. By entering this spaces we can simply turn our attention to God. Perhaps a word of thanks to God for the flower growing alongside the path or perhaps our stewardship of attention can be as simple as enjoying/basking in the sunlight and warmth of a hot summer day. In these spaces, in these precious moments, we find we have everything we need.

So, let’s be good stewards of our awareness, allowing our attention to turn towards God in the spaces of our lives. The miracle of all this is that the more attention we pay to God, the more spaces open in our lives -- eternity in the moment beckons, our true home reveals itself.