"To forget that you are only human, to think you can act like a god-this is the opposite of reverence." ~Paul Woodruff

Being human is tough work. Or maybe it is being human, trying to be a god, that is really the tough work. Perspective skews and blurs the boundary between these states of being all the time and we forget the limitations of our humanness. In that shadowland, it is very easy to lose our way. When one believes in their god-like character that they can be in control of anything outside themselves, that they can effect change simply through their will or even might, it becomes very risky business. We see this drama being played out all the time on a national scale and in the dramas of our much smaller lives. In this play-within-a-play there is no room for reverence yet great room for pain.

Reverence: To consider or treat with profound awe and respect; to venerate. I believe the realm of reverence lies between human and the Divine Mystery as it forges the depth of the relationship between humans and what we cannot create, what we cannot manage in our limitations.  Living with reverence provides a great wake up call.

I am thinking specifically of what is happening in my garden right now. As the tulips have been pushing their way back into the world, reaching toward the light and opening their brilliant color in the world, I know that I did almost nothing to make this happen. Of course, we planted the bulbs but the work the flowers themselves did was nothing I had any part in. In fact, we even have tulips not planted by human hands but which found their way into the soil through some other means, perhaps at the hands of a squirrel who dropped a treasure along the way. These tulips are not the shades we planted and yet there they are, a blessing to us in these spring days.

Last week, in the early morning hours of daylight, my husband came into the back door of our house after taking the garbage cans to the curb. "Come out the front door." he said to me. As I did, I followed his eyes to the grapevine wreath we have hanging outside the front door. Nestled among the fake, silk flowers, sat a dragon fly. Its fully formed green and brown body looked sleek and shiny. Its delicate, lacy wings quivered in the cold morning air. Where did it come from? Where was it going? Why, in all the places it could have landed, did it land at our door, at our house?

Reverence is our response to gifts that come to us for which we did not pay or even ask. Reverence is our response to letting go of all the power we think we have as we stand in awe of our powerlessness. Reverence reminds us who we are, and whose we are, and gives us the wisdom to now the difference between our humanity and the One who breathed us into being.

"Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground. " writes the author of the Book of Exodus. As humans, we simply need to be barefoot more often.