Psalm 46 If I were to ask the question, "Where do you meet God?" I would get a variety of answers. Some would say, "God is in my heart and in the very center of my being. There is a wonderful intimacy." Some responses would echo Carl Jung, the behavioral scientist, who said, when he was asked if he believed in God, "I don't believe in God; I know God." Others would echo what Jesus said, as He developed in His spiritual maturity and came into His fullness. He said, "I and the Father are one." Jesus introduced us to the now-familiar use of the word Father to refer to God, and He spoke of a close and affectionate bond. Others might answer my question this way: "I want a close relationship with God. I yearn for it, but God seems so distant, so hard to get to. I connect with God only spasmodically. I want much more, but it doesn't happen." In response I might ask, "Where do you think God is located?" The answer would be something like this: "I know God is said to be everywhere, but basically God is up there somewhere in the heavens." You hear people call God "the man upstairs." It is hard for me to connect with somebody who is so far, far away, not connected to us internally. A third group of answers I would get are exciting, warm-hearted and loving. "Whenever I look at a flower, I see perfection," some would say. "I see a little seed which spends time in the darkness of the earth, sprouts, and then in its own time comes into its fullness. I see God in the flower." Or they might say, "I see God in the night sky. I look up into the sky and see thousands and thousands of stars, and I know that beyond the stars I can see with my naked eye there are millions and millions more. What is this little planet, and who am I? I know I am seeing the handiwork of God." I often have that reaction when I am watching a dramatic sunset. The sunsets I have enjoyed the most were over the ocean, where the sky reflects its color in the water. And how many times, watching the sunset, have I been transfixed. Sometimes the only word we know to use at such a time is God. Many times when we hear magnificently performed, masterfully created music, we are inspired and lifted to another place. We feel we are fused with the Divine, and all we can say is -- God. And perhaps most amazing of all, which of us has not held a little baby, and looked at the fingernails, and the eyelashes, and the eyelids, and those beautiful little eyes look into our eyes, and they seem to be so knowing. "It is a miracle," we say, and often we mean, "It is God." For many people the only way they see God is in the miracles around us -- nature, music, the beauty of a tiny baby. Some do not have any other relationship with God. They also might ask the question, "If there is more to God than this, where do I meet God?" For more years than I care to admit, I had great difficulty connecting with God. I yearned for a connection, but it wasn't happening. Even though I knew better, God to me was still "out there", in the heavens, in some distant place where the Divine dwells. I could not feel connected. For years, the best connection I had with God happened when I was in trouble or need, and I would pray these begging prayers: "God, help me, perform a miracle, get me out of this mess." When I was asking God to intercede in this way,  I would feel very close to God, and I would make wonderful promises. "God, I will be faithful, I will pray every day," and on and on. As soon as the crisis passed, poof!, it was all gone. But then, God always has a way of meeting us at our point of need, and when we are finally ready to hear, God is present for us. I was in my early thirties, still having great difficulty connecting consistently with God. Then somebody said to me one day, out of the blue--I hadn't expressed a need or concern -- "I know people from Unity in Lees Summit, Missouri," he said. "I'm going to send you out there for a few days. I want you to meet these people and hear what they have to say." Unity is a Christian movement which is very strong on the power of prayer, particularly its power to heal. They take seriously Jesus' statement, "The Kingdom of God is within you." They teach that the spiritual journey is interior, and life is lived from the inside out. So I went out to Missouri for a few days, talked to some of the people who ran Unity, went to a couple of classes, spent time in the library. Then one afternoon in the library, as I was thumbing through a book -- I don't even remember what I was reading, but it all suddenly came to me. I experienced that God was within. God was no longer out there, no longer some distant God. This was the real beginning of my spiritual journey. In the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament, there is a story providing one answer to our quest for God. Elijah had gone into the wilderness; he was exhausted and discouraged, and feared for his life. An angel came to him and told him to climb a particular mountain, as God would be passing by. So Elijah went to the mountain and waited. He was eager, anxious, because he was going to see God. Suddenly there was a great wind. It must have been a hurricane or a tornado, because it split the mountain and broke the rocks into pieces. Then the scripture says that "God was not in the wind." After the wind came an earthquake. We all know what earthquakes do. They shake the earth, the very foundations that are beneath us; what has been secure under our feet is rattled. But, the scripture says, "God was not in the earthquake." The earthquake was followed by a white-hot fire that consumed everything, seemed to envelope the entire world. But after the fire had gone the scripture says, "And God was not in the fire." It goes on to say that after the fire had passed, there was sheer silence, and out of the silence Elijah heard a still small voice. This is the voice of God, who speaks simply and directly to Elijah, asking "What are you doing here, Elijah?" and bringing him the guidance he needs. God is found, God is met, God is discovered best in the quiet, in the silence. As we meet God in the silence, there is no noise, nothing to distract us. It is just God and us--the sheer silence in us, the better able to hear--and the question is, "What are you doing here, Arthur? What are you doing here, Mary? What are you doing here, John?" The question is, "What are you doing with the life you have been given? What are you doing with the gifts that have been given you?" Psalm 46, one of my favorite psalms, begins, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." The psalmist goes on to talk about the desolation of the earth, noise and chaos, the harshness and difficulty of life. Then the fifth verse reassures us: "God is in the midst of the city." Wherever there are people, wherever there are souls -- there is God. God is present. The tenth verse is the most significant statement of this psalm: "Be still, and know that I am God." It is in the stillness, the quiet, the silence that we experience God. When, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructed the people how to pray, He said we should not be like those who boast about their prayers, who pray in loud voices with many words in the public spots so others can see how wonderful a prayer they are. No, Jesus said, "Go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And in secret, your Father will respond to you." Oh, for the prayer in the silence. What did Jesus do with the heavy burdens and pressures, the conflicts and chaos around Him? He went off to a lonely place, a quiet place. He would go to the mountain, He would go to the seaside, He would go into a garden --  quiet places, places where He could be in the silence, with no distractions, and where He could hear what the Father would say to Him. When you pray, do you take time to go into a quiet place, and become quiet inside? If you haven't been doing this, I commend it to you. Oftentimes when we pray we look for and expect an exalted and dramatic experience. I did this for a long time. During my morning prayers I wanted to have a high moment, a mountain-top experience. I wanted exaltation, joy, ecstasy. And every once in a while during the prayer period, I would be raised to this high spiritual level where I would feel ecstatic. I would feel I could handle anything -- after this wonderful prayer period, the day was going to be perfect, and everything would come easily. But every time that happened, the day was full of chaos and conflict and confusion. It reminds me of a sermon I heard one day as I was flipping through the stations on the car radio. The preacher was saying, "Just when you think you've got it all together, all hell breaks loose." This is what would happen with me. The Buddhists have a saying, "After the ecstasy comes the laundry." I don't pray for ecstasy any more. I don't pray to feel good. I pray in the quiet for God's will to be done, and over and over again I pray the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Make haste to help me. Rescue me and save me. And the last line is the one I repeat over and over again: Do Your will in my life. Your will be done -- that really is the ultimate prayer. It is the prayer of the Cross. It is the foundation of every prayer. "Lord, do Your will in my life." I will say that praying in this way is not as much fun as seeking ecstasy, but it is much better for me. It keeps me humble and open to the movement of the Spirit. It helps me hear what God has to say. We meet God in the silence. If we go back to Psalm 46, we see there is another way to meet God. "God is in the midst of the city," it says. When you go outside onto the street this morning, God is there. Wherever there are people, wherever there are souls, God is there. God is active in people whether or not they consider themselves religious. I have seen God in the midst of this city on so many occasions. On the subway one day there was a woman, obviously a newcomer to this country, looking worried and confused, trying in broken English to ask at what stop she should get off. Right away she found herself surrounded by a group of people -- all ethnically different from her and each other -- trying to understand what she was asking for and where she wanted to go. Then a woman in the group said, "Your stop is coming up. It isn't where I get off, but I will get off with you and take you where you want to go." This was God, acting out in a Good Samaritan way in the midst of the city. Every time I am in a doctor's office or the hospital, and recently when I was under the surgeon's knife, God was there. God is a healer, working through the people of medicine, whether they are religious or not. Each is part of God's healing team. God is in the medicines that we take. God was a part of the creative minds that discovered these medicines so we might be made well. God is in the midst of the healing art. A number of years ago, I behaved in a very insensitive way toward another person and hurt that person badly. As quickly as I was aware of what I had done, I called the person to ask forgiveness. The response was, "It will be hard, Arthur, because I am deeply hurt." Some months later the telephone call I was hoping for came: "Arthur, I've been praying and praying and praying, and I am able to say I forgive you." In that moment the God in that person met the God that was in me, and we met, and there was healing. I saw God in the city on 9/11 and the days immediately following. Those of you who were in New York on those terrible days know what I mean. Our priorities changed. All of a sudden, every other human being, every other human soul, was important. We reached out to one another, and we embraced; we forgot ourselves and did whatever needed to be done. It was an extraordinary time. I may never see anything like that again; God was in the midst of the city. When we are called to reach deep into ourselves and find benevolence, generosity, forgiveness and caring, the God in us meets the God in someone else. This is what we mean when we say, "God is in the midst of the city." Where do you meet God? In the silence, in the stillness, when we go apart and become quiet inside. And then, when we return to the busyness of life, we find God in other people. Let us pray. LORD, for the benevolence of Your presence, for the silence which You give us, where we can meet You; and for the gift of other people who have cared enough to make a difference in our lives, we say thank You. Lord, help us to learn silence, and help us to keep on meeting one another. Amen.