March 8, 2020: The Divine in All Things, All People, In All Places - Paige Harris & Scott Oppliger

 

God is everywhere present. This is a central conviction within the Christian Tradition, and is something the Psalmist sings about when he writes “Where can I go from your Spirit?” This presence is seen in tangible ways throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The word used by the Jewish people to speak of this is Shekinah - from the Hebrew word meaning “to dwell.” The Shekinah fills the temple, meets with Moses, is a pillar of cloud during the day and fire at night for the Hebrew people. It means God is present.

The word is, in fact, feminine, and in many places of the Hebrew Tradition it is believed The Shekinah is the feminine side of God - it is the feminine manifestation of God made visible to the world. Within the Jewish Tradition this spoke of God’s nearness to them, and did so in a concrete way. The masculine image of God spoke less of immanence and was more abstract. This feminine image of God, the presence of God (also expressed as Spirit) is always about the immanence of the Divine - sometimes as close as our next breath.