Had a brief chat with God the other day. This was at the United States Post Office. God was manning the counter from one to five, as he does every blessed day.  He actually says every blessed day and means it. You never saw a more patient being. He never loses his cool and, believe me, he could. I would. I have been in line behind crazies at his window and heard vituperative abuse and vulgar character assassination and scurrilous insinuation and never once did I witness any flash of temper in response to this on his part. I have asked him how he could maintain his cool and he says things like, I try to put myself in their position, and, Witnessing vented emotion is part of the job, and All storms blow over, and it’s only frustration and There are so many much more serious things and We are all neighbors in the end.  I am impressed by these sentiments, in large part because I share them consistently in theory but inconsistently in practice. God, however, does not waver nor does he fluctuate in his equanimity. He stands there quietly as people bang their fists on his counter and offer rude remarks and stomp away muttering darkly. And I walked out of the Post Office thinking that if we cannot see God in the vessels into which the electricity of astonishing life is poured by a profligate creation, vessels like this wonderfully and eternally gracious gentleman at the Post Office, then we are very bad at the religion we claim to practice which says forthrightly that God is everywhere available, if only we remove the beam from our eyes, and bow in humility and gratitude for the miraculous, which falleth even as the light from the sun, which touches all beings, and is withheld from none. So it is that I have seen God at the United States Post Office, and spoken to him, and been edified and elevated by his grace, which slakes all those who thirst; which is each of us, which is all of us.

The words of Brian Doyle

R:  I believe that I will see the goodness of Our God in the land of the living.

God, you are my light and my salvation;

who will I fear?

You are the stronghold of my life;

of whom will I be afraid?

R: I believe that I will see the goodness of Our God in the land of the living.

One thing have I asked of You, Adonai,

that will I seek after;

That I may dwell in Your house

all the days of my life,

To behold Your beauty

and to inquire in the Temple.

R: I believe that I will see the goodness of Our God in the land of the living.

Hear me when I cry aloud,

be gracious to me and answer me!

You have said, “Seek my face.”

My heart says to You,

“Your face do I seek.”

R: I believe that I will see the goodness of Our God in the land of the living.