Immersed in God

THAT may sound fantastic. Wait, a better word might be grotesque, bizarre, weird. Take your pick. How can you in all your senses think of being immersed in God in a world drunk with its own sense of limitless possibilities?

One chronicler of modern growth lampooned that nowadays with our information overdrive, being uninformed seems to be one of the old-fashioned luxuries that are fast disappearing.

To me, though, that cheeky satire actually betrays a deepening doubt worming into many of our pioneering bright guys as to where all their intelligence is leading them—and us—to.

In their haste to conquer not only the material world but also the infinite outer space of possibilities that their intelligence is teasing them, they have forgotten—and very culpably at that—one basic truth. There is God!

That open space of endless possibilities that our spiritual faculties can access is not exactly an anything-goes place were we are absolutely free to do anything. It has laws to be followed or at least respected.

In case we’ve forgotten, God is the creator of the universe, whether in terms of the material, the intellectual, the spiritual or the supernatural. We don’t fool around with that truth without getting into trouble sooner or later.

This truth will always be the breaking news for us, everyday, every minute. Woe to us when we think that news is already dated, and therefore not anymore relevant. It will never lose its relevance.

The problem we often have is that instead of allowing what we see around us and what we feel and long inside us to lead us to God, we choose to get entangled with them.

If we are the intellectual type, then we mesmerize ourselves with the infinite possibilities our intelligence and will can discover. If we are the artistic type, then we make ourselves be completely charmed by the arts.

If we don’t have that much IQ or artistry, and we just like to be very human, then we like to play out the drama of life, its highs and lows, its perks and pains. We snub God. From there it’s easy to alienate ourselves from others.

This is something we have to correct. We are nothing without God. We have to be more consistent to our indispensable and basic need for God.

For this, we have to realize more deeply that often we have to make a conscious, deliberate effort to put ourselves in his presence, to offer everything and do it always with him.

We cannot take this for granted, because there are endless ways for us to get distracted from our orientation to God, to cool down our love for him, to be complacent and later to believe we are just our own God and our own creature.

That’s what’s happening when we see these bright guys pursuing their projects without God. They are prone to exaggerate, to lose sense of balance, to be dominated by obsessions, and all forms of vices like greed, vanity, pride, etc.

The rationalizations behind artificial contraception and the legalization of abortion are pieces of evidence lending credence to this disturbing trend.

We need to learn the art and skill of being immersed in God all the time. This is, of course, a matter of God’s grace, which we can presume to be given to us since that’s His will. But we need to learn the basic essentials and techniques.

Our usual problem in this regard is our tendency to make our experience with God just a fleeting moment, before we freeze, formalize and harden it into some routine, structure or façade. We don’t know how to be immersed in him for long, and in fact, for always.

We need certain practices that organically spring from our authentic faith and love of God and others to keep us with God. These can be prayer, mortification, recourse to the sacraments, waging ascetical struggle, sanctification of work, doing apostolate, etc.

We have to examine whether we are doing them or at least trying to develop them in ways adapted to our circumstances.

Contemplating God is actually easy and can be done anytime. It doesn’t have to involve ecstasies, levitations and stigmata. Just give your mind and heart to him, and you’re already immersed in God.