Seek the Sacred Amidst the Ordinary

It’s a beautiful, crystal clear morning on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. The journey here has brought me to a mixture of times long since past and times yet to come. So I was drawn to this amazing photo by my high school friend Eric of the cross located on Interstate Highway 10 in Kerrville, TX. I love how he caught the light streaming through the top of this enormous cross. As an engineer, I am awed by the openwork metal construction, by the daring of the builders to take on a task so many others would forsake. It is so easy to see the empty, solid cross as the whole story, rather than simply the beginning of the story. It’s tempting to dwell on the past, on how we got to the empty cross. It’s what we know for sure, what we can easily account for. Instead the empty cross is a glimpse of eternity, the beginning of a glorious and wonderful story that starts here and now. A very wise child taught me that eternity is not linear time without beginning or end. Eternity is all times happening right now, simultaneously, miraculously, spectacularly. Rather than standing at a single point, looking back or looking forward, the Almighty can perceived all times, all places, all souls, all at once. Make time today to glimpse eternity through the window of the resurrection cross. Root yourself firmly in the here and now, in the intersection between our linear perception of time and God’s all encompassing eternity. Let go of your meager human solutions to make room for the Divine, to follow God’s plan rather than your own. Open your heart to the Mystery, to seek consolation rather than comprehension. And always remember, each and every time we turn afresh to the steadfast love of Alpha and Omega, we find infinitely more than we can hope for, or even begin to imagine. Text by Connie Chintall ©2013, Photo by Eric Jordan, of the Kerrville Cross. To learn more about this amazing cross, go to http://thecrossatkerrville.org/home/