What Is the Presence?

I knew it had to happen.  If you write and talk about something long enough, someone asks you that ‘zinger’ question to see if you really know about that which you speak of.  Such was the situation the other day when I was asked; “What’s this Presence thing you keep talking about?” 

I took a deep breath and stalled for a moment.  “Ummmmmmmmmmmm”   My brain seemed stuck  in first gear.

COME ON!      What’d they have to go and ask that for?   My first reaction is to say something really caustic, but I don’t.  Instead, I bite my tongue and answer with the cliché religious answer : “At the risk of sounding like I’m ready for a padded room, and a straight jacket, the Presence is God himself. “

My brain screams Aaaauuuuuugggggghhhhhh!   What a lame response.  I can do better than that.

Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I have a better answer.  Asking someone what the Presence is, is like asking someone  to tell you what watermelon taste like.  You can no more describe the Presence than you can tell someone what the color RED feels like.  (We’ll come back to that thought in a moment.)   We’ll do an easy one, and think about something yellow. You know what a lemon smells like because you were told sometime early in your development that it was lemon you were smelling.  If you see and smell a lemon enough times, you can point one out  a mile away, just by the smell.  You don’t need to see it.  If you tasted it, you would immediately know it was a lemon.  If you saw a lemon, you would immediately begin to salivate in expectation of the bittersweet experience you’ve had in the past.  If you were asked to explain to someone how does yellow feel, you would probably go the path of a lemon.  Yet, if you asked someone to explain how does a lemon feel, they would probably go to the taste of one first.  We don’t have the ability to tell anyone what a color feels like, because color is based upon our vision.  Red doesn’t feel like anything, yet, we describe things as being red.  It all depends upon the senses being used, as to how you describe something.  If I say coffee, almost anyone can immediately identify it.  If I say cold, you know what I’m talking about.  If I say RED, you immediately have a visual image of red.   While our five senses can detect the Presence of God, I can only tell you what I feel in my spirit by using terms couched in our five senses.  If I tell you that the Presence of God feels like a warm blanket, you immediately have a sensory image to draw upon, even though the actual feeling was greater than what I told you.  It’s like telling you that the color RED feels warm.  Once I do that, you immediately associate red with warmth.  RED can be fast.  RED can be sweet, Red can be loud, Red can be firm, . . . RED can feel like anything. 

The Presence of God can feel like anything to anyone, but  when I walk into my office at 5:30 in the morning, I immediately sense the Presence of God.  Does God spend the night in my office?  NO! 

 Is God’s Presence greater in my office than in my office at home?  NO! 

So what is so special about the Sparrow’s Perch?   Why do I need to start my day in this place?

Because, it is the place I come to, to open my Spirit up to him.  This is the place that I go away to, in order to be alone with HIM.  Even though He is ever present, always with me, anywhere I am, it is my responsibility to find the time to acknowledge Him.  I’m the one who must find a place and time to be aware of HIM.  Otherwise, I go mindlessly through my ‘religious’ paces without acknowledging HIM.  The Sparrow’s Perch is an attitude, not a GPS location.  The older I become, the more I find myself living in His Presence in any situation.  Whether I’m working, driving, talking, singing, or doing any other of a host of life’s daily actions, I can feel His Presence.  However, it is here in the Sparrow’s Perch that I’m more aware of HIM.  He becomes more real to me as I sit in this chair sipping coffee, and listening to the Sparrows singing their praises to Him in the soft cool of the morning.  At this moment, the Presence is a soft, quiet, tranquility that pushes away everything else, and makes me feel at peace with the world around me. The Presence is peace, and joy in the midst of anything. Other times, His Presence makes me feel like a caged lion, and other times like a small child standing against a night sky wondering how many stars there are.  All I do know, is that I must have His Presence.

Oh, I forgot, I can’t describe the taste of watermelon, but I can tell you that God’s Presence always feels luscious, . . . at least to me.