Meeting God in Unexpected Places

In Jewish folklore the baby leaves the womb because God softly beckons, woos and gently calls!

The ‘All Are Welcome’ sign, waiting on the outside as I make my exit from Church!

These signs appear in all the wrong places. Invitations can appear at exits and exits can be an unexpected invitation to begin again.

God, it seems, is completely oblivious to all our religious demarcation zones, exits, entrances, no go or no god zones.

God is colour blind, so it seems, to the black-and-white of who is in and who is outed.

God, it seems, has no issues with men-made boundaries or breaking through, breaking out, breaking in or breaking up all those institutional constructs where consciousness is entombed or enwombed.

For most of my life I was convinced that God’s permanent residency was in the Church, until I realised one day that the whole cosmos was God’s chapel; until I realised that there was literally no space, no place where God wasn't.

It came as a wonderful gift that God was on the outside calling me in to the wide open spaces. The welcome sign outside of the Church was my invitation to leave its womb, knowing full well if I didn’t it could become a tomb.

Bob Garbett

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