Like the Dewfall

In the Roman Catholic mass, the beginning of Eucharistic Prayer II offers a line worthy of reflection:

In Latin: “Haec ergo dona, quaesumus, Spiritus tui rore sanctifica.”

In English: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall.”

The dewfall part was omitted from the 1973 Missal but included in the 2011 Missal. I remember when the new Missal came out. Each pew had a half dozen large, plastic-coated prayer cards indicating the new responses in bold. Having attended mass every Sunday for 14 years, I noticed every change.

The dewfall line always stuck out. It was different, poetic even.

There are biblical grounds for comparing God’s blessing to dewfall–think mana in the desert, life-sustaining bread which came after the morning dew. In the ancient world, dew had do be somewhat magical. It still is. A crisp blanket of dewfall over the rolling hills is a sight to behold. I remember early morning drives to the golf course fondly.

A biological perspective might shed light on just how the Holy Spirit works.

Morning dew happens when grass cool down, then atmospheric water vapor condenses on the cool blades. The water vapor is right there, in the air, surrounding everything. But it doesn’t come until the sun goes away, until the warmth of day fades and the cool, dark night falls. Though we feel the dew when we walk across the lawn late at night, it’s only at daybreak that we see the impact of these trillions of little water droplets.

God’s Holy Spirit is like water in the atmosphere. Abundant, ubiquitous, ready to fall down at the opportune moment. Like a Water Bender in Avatar: The Last Airbender, channeling it may very well be possible with the right supernatural charism. A channeler–the role of priest.

At the same time, there exists in the grass an indwelling of potential that attracts the water vapor. Because of its very nature as a living being on earth, it can receive the blessing of dewfall each morning. So can we.

These ancient words and symbols can take on new meaning when we see them with fresh eyes.

More than Meets the Eye

Order is only possible if there is also entropy. Entropy seems to win.

Entropy, as thermodynamic holds, is always increasing. All aspects of the universe tend toward chaos, towards falling apart. Organization is seldom witnessed, let alone maintained.

If God created everything, why did God create entropy? Why do things have to fall apart?

Perhaps the only way things can ever organize is if the raw materials somehow came together in the first place. The only way for things to come together, it seems, is if there are plenty of things that fall apart, first. The Big Bang did not create the perfect conditions for Earth; it created the conditions for stars to burn and explode, then Earth took shape after enough rock floating was floating around our sun that gravity pulled it all together. Order, but first there was chaos.

We tend to justify order as a good, benevolent force and chaos as a bad, malevolent one. Perhaps that’s the way it is. Or maybe order is an evolutionary mechanism, intrinsic to the survivability of complex social species such as ours. Maybe we equate order with goodness because that’s what’s best for our survival.

Either way, whether order, chaos, organization, or entropy takes over, all are aspects of God, Who is all things. There can be no light without darkness, no order without entropy, no good without evil. Life is duality, but here we are thinking God is only the good. It’s all God, is it not?

I am From God

On the first day of class, my Anatomy professor told us that whatever affections, feelings, or emotions we’ve ever felt towards another comes from the brain. He assured us the heart doesn’t do anything but pump blood. I was about to ask “what about the soul?” but I wasn’t courageous enough.

But I’ve felt my soul. I’ve felt it in my heart. When I ask it a question, I feel reverberations throughout my chest and my body. It’s where I am. It’s who I am. It is me and I am it.

I believe my soul—and, therefore, myself—is from God. The reason I can’t get a grasp on my soul is the same reason I can’t get a grasp on God. There’s an infinite depth in my being that can only be described by a relation to the divine, to source, to God. My soul will always be with me but I’ll never fully understand it. I believe the same is true with God.

So I don’t give a shit about what an old pharmacist says about Me. He doesn’t know me. I don’t even know me. So good luck trying to understand me, Doc.

Everything is Sacred

A four year old kissed his mother on the lips during mass yesterday. It was during the most sacred part, the consecration. I’ve been going to mass every weekend since I was a baby. The Catholic Church has been my home and I’ve come to believe what it teaches—generally. This was one of the most profound experiences I’ve witnessed in Church.

It made me rethink what we hold sacred and what we value. Why is a tree more important than a church pew? Why do we think God is present at church but not in the kitchen? Maybe doing the dishes is as sacred as mass if we allow it to be. I don’t know. I happen to think being aware of the craftsmanship of God means God is present.

Some people call it *finding God in all things*. I just want to treat more things like they matter. I want today to be sacred even if it doesn’t feel like it. I want to believe that every single feature of this world is an opportunity to witness the divine, the God is us and in all.