CELERY
Everybody knows what the technical term online or offline means. Have you gone to that machine for some cash only to find it offline? Or enjoyed chats online with a friend or your children from different parts of the world? Or submitted a report late because you couldn’t get online?
How about the idea of someone being online to one’s creator? Or a flower online to the sun such as the sunflower? Jeremias Drexelius, SJ, describes this in his book. According to him, “Heliotropium (the title) is the ancient form of the sunflower. It “constantly turns its face to the sun.”
Drexelius believes that a Christian who is “online” to God gets to know him as his creator in a similar way. If I stay “online” to God, I will recognize the signs of his divine plan for me. I will be more receptive to his whispers, urgings, and visitations. By listening to my creator’s voice and obeying him, I will experience his greatest good – his peace and joy. Staying offline from God, of course, would end in the opposite result.
Furthermore, Richard Rohr writes about a Hindu tradition. He says that “darshan means to behold the Divine and to allow yourself to be fully seen. Many Hindus visit temples not to see God but to let God gaze upon them. And then they join God’s seeing which is always unconditional love and compassion.” How awesome it is to think of God as “gazing” upon me. How humbling to realize that I can share God’s vision of me.
Thus, I see an “online” relationship with God as a mutual initiative between him and me. I have a glimpse of who we are to each other when I respond to him. And there is nothing as perfect as seeing everyone and everything through his eyes.
Celia, thanks for planting this thought. Now whenever I go online i’ll try to feel God’s gaze, then make myself see everyone and everything through His eyes. Maraming salamat!!