The meaning is in existing

I don't always really know what to say, I don't always understand things.

Sometimes I see pieces and not the whole, sometimes I am lost in the middle of parts of something that don't yet make sense.

Sometimes I am in the middle of experiencing, and there isn't yet resolution.

I hold the pieces up and out and look and see and just don't know.

It feels sometimes as if I am walking in God, and can't see it because I am in it. Or sometimes life is the day-to-day, and I am living.

Perhaps this is why I love poetry; the best of it says so much without really saying anything.

There are no conclusive answers, no driving points or lessons. Just images that make us more present, more attuned to the world and our own and others' souls.

I am thinking about how it is presence that matters -- our presence in others' lives, others' presence in our lives. It is through this that we see and know God, that we make his love tangible.

God is here:

My godson, Cam, smiling up at us at his baptism after the deacon poured the water over his head and anointed him with oil.

Sitting across from Katie in a coffee shop, being safe places to deposit each other's honest questions.

My friend, Julie, who is going to be a stay-at-home mom when her first child is born in a few months.

My own mom and the steadfast presence I know in my life because of her decision to be a stay-at-home mom, too.

And here:

The rain streaming across my car window, pushed by the air in precise and wild lines as I drive.

A letter from Mee, three months late (because I live in apartment No. 3, not No. 30).

The man in the coffee shop with the shaking hand vomiting in the open over the newspapers and trying to talk with people. The space that is left when things and people leave.

Holy, holy, holy.

Sometimes there isn't anything to say about something except to say it, that it was or is or will be. It merits nothing else, requires nothing else, no deeper meaning because the meaning is in the fact that it is. Like poetry. Like presence. Like all these people and experiences. Like God.

Presence doesn't require words; it requires being. Words and thinking and making meaning sometimes fall short; the meaning is in existing.

God is in all things and all people, being, transforming, bringing about good. God is in us, with us, through us; our presence makes his presence and love visible. We can just be in him, trusting that he is with us and in our experiences, working all things for good.