Awake and Con­nect­ed to Our Divine Parent

For cen­turies, the peo­ple of God have been prac­tic­ing being awake. We catch a glimpse of this prac­tice in the life of Daniel. You might remem­ber Daniel and the lion’s den from child­hood Bible sto­ries. His friends had a brush with dan­ger too; the three of them were thrown into a fur­nace for the swift ego kick they gave King Neb­uchad­nez­zar by refus­ing to bow to a gold­en idol. 

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed­nego were all sen­tenced to a fiery death, when God, the hid­den one, became less hid­den, and pro­tect­ed them. Daniel, how­ev­er, had a wee gift of under­stand­ing dreams. It seems God gives this gift to his peo­ple when they are out­num­bered, over­whelmed, and in a tight spot. Daniel found him­self in a place of pow­er in a land that didn’t fol­low the God he freely knew in his child­hood. His God had accom­pa­nied him in good and bad, through betray­al and trau­ma, through pro­mo­tion and prison. Now, Daniel want­ed to keep com­pa­ny with God no mat­ter where life took him, no mat­ter what sit­u­a­tions and glob­al cat­a­stro­phes were present. In verse ten of Daniel chap­ter six, we get one tiny glimpse of how he did that. Although Daniel knew the doc­u­ment had been signed, (the doc­u­ment sup­port­ing the com­pul­sive ego tend­ing of the king), he con­tin­ued to go to his house, which had win­dows in its upper room open toward Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done pre­vi­ous­ly. (Daniel 6:10)

Three times a day, Daniel turned his whole self, body includ­ed toward God. Three times a day, he remind­ed him­self to wake up. Sur­round­ed by hos­tile com­mu­ni­ty, with feel­ings of war­rant­ed fear, Daniel paused and let God remind him of the real­i­ty of things. 

Chil­dren car­ry Daniel’s wis­dom with them. When my kids were lit­tle, going to the park was a treat. Once a week, I met with a group of women for prayer and study; those of us who were home­school­ing schlepped our chil­dren along too. The kids met new peo­ple and played quite hap­pi­ly with­out adult inter­ven­tion. This park was suit­ably equipped with a steep met­al slide that brought just the right amount of dan­ger. Either you fell from the unrailed land­ing after sum­mit­ing ten feet of nar­row steps, or you blis­tered your bare legs on the red-hot grid­dle of a slide made hot by the high-alti­tude sun. If that wasn’t enough per­il, a few spins on the mer­ry-go round helped you retaste your lunch. The mon­key bars weren’t men­ac­ing until anoth­er kid decid­ed to chal­lenge the abil­i­ty to hang on for dear life with defend­ing the right to take up space. Not one child lost an eye, but bruised bod­ies and rum­pled feel­ings some­times occurred. Still, this was adven­tur­ous liv­ing for young children. 

One after­noon, while we adults gath­ered dis­cussing the mer­its of par­ent­ing as mild per­se­cu­tion (a test­ing of our faith that might cost us every­thing), I noticed some­thing. While the chil­dren were on the play­ground, they would occa­sion­al­ly stop and look for their par­ents. While play­ing, my kids would raise their heads and move to a place where they could see me and be seen. If they couldn’t catch my eye and con­nect with a glance, they would stop what­ev­er they were doing and come to me. Not real­ly to ask for any­thing, but to be present — not more than a moment — for a touch, a hug, a hel­lo for con­nec­tion. Then they were back to play­ing, the good work of being a child. 

Much lat­er, I learned that this behav­ior was what secure attach­ment looked like. When we are secure­ly attached, we have free­dom to go and do what is ours to do. We can be who we are with free­dom and light. We can explore and test. The glance back, the pause, or the touch­stone is to remind us of who we are; it is to remind us of the real­i­ty of being a beloved one safe in the arms of one who loves us. 

Chil­dren prac­tice this pause and we adults do it too, espe­cial­ly with God. We are born with a secure attach­ment to God. Our expec­ta­tions of safe­ty and care are alive and well. As we grow up, we need an ongo­ing con­nec­tion with God, even as we do the work that we are called to do, whether we are par­ents or plumbers or both. 

Adults can for­get our ongo­ing need; we can start to buy into the illu­sion that we are in this alone, that the wounds and wan­der­ings of our liv­ing go unseen and with­out care. This way of liv­ing is not real­ly liv­ing. It is painful, and we will do what­ev­er we can to get some relief from the pain. We nur­ture false attach­ments that can nev­er take the place of a true attach­ment to God, our divine par­ent. These false attach­ments are in them­selves good gifts giv­en to us for enjoy­ment. But we become depen­dent, ask­ing them to do to what they can­not. We look to peo­ple, posi­tions, pos­ses­sions, and potions of all kinds. These can­not give us what we most deeply desire, but they can lull us to sleep. They can, for a short peri­od of time, move us into a state of not feel­ing our pain. 

We can be lulled to a kind of zom­bie sleep by the demands sur­round­ing us. Work, fam­i­ly, church, respon­si­bil­i­ties, even good social jus­tice work — these can be tasks we do, not because they flow out of our liv­ing and lov­ing with God, but because we are run­ning from our pain. In essence, these false attach­ments trick us into think­ing that we are awake to real­i­ty when we are actu­al­ly asleep. 

Daniel’s three-times-a-day glance back at God kept him awake and con­nect­ed. Three times a day he stopped and, like an adult child con­nect­ing to his God, his divine par­ent, he touched their con­nec­tion. He drank in divine love and real­i­ty. And we all know what hap­pens next. Daniel went through a ter­ri­ble tri­al where his very life was in dan­ger. While being hurled into a lion’s den may not be a com­mon occur­rence for West­ern human beings, still, liv­ing is inher­ent­ly dan­ger­ous. Our finite human bod­ies get sick and die. Trau­ma and tragedy are all around us. We must, if we are to stay awake, keep our fin­ger on the real­i­ty that we have a Divine Par­ent who is with us through it all. 

The first men­tion of the name Emmanuel is in Isa­iah 7:14, where it rep­re­sents a sign­post for a present and future hope that indeed, God was and is with the peo­ple. To be sure that we under­stand, Matthew quotes Isa­iah and then opens it up a bit more direct­ly: “‘And they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ​‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:23). I sup­pose God could have named him­self ​“God fix­es us,” or ​“God judges us.” Or ​“God mocks us.” Or even ​“God puts up with us.” But then, what is it about God that pro­pels our divine par­ent to breach heav­en and earth and (if you ask our East­ern Ortho­dox sis­ters and broth­ers) kick in the gates of hell to be with us? Oh, yeah, love. This is what love looks like. God chose to be Emmanuel. God is with us from a place of love. God is not repelled by human beings but drawn to us: love looks like that. Being with God is the most awake a human being can be.