Resting in the Divine Current

Rest allows the things stirring in us to reveal God’s stirring in all things.

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Underneath everything there’s a Current flowing in us.

A flow of thoughts, of memories, of indescribable longings. It has free rein when we sleep and when we daydream. It was never far from our consciousness as children, even when we were supposed to be paying attention in school. But now, as grown-ups, most of our days are spent suppressing this Current — so many expectations pressing upon us, shaping us as responsible citizens. Of course our attention has to be constrained by the roles we play. Our time, our energy, our emotions have to be managed to function in the world in which we find ourselves.

But while we’re training our energies and attentions to conform to the things expected of us, that Current still flows underneath it all — the sensory, instinctive, emotional responses our hearts and minds want (and need) to engage. Ignoring it doesn’t make this current go away. It needs time to have its way. Suppressing it for too long makes us sad and sick.

And even when we finally have the freedom to direct our own attentions — a moment of quiet before bed, a weekend away, the slow season around holidays — often we’re so exhausted by the work of constraining the Current that it’s easy to just keep giving our attention to more external things. Social media, movies, books, and podcasts are good things — forms of art, and ways we engage with the current of life in others.

My question is — when will this Current surging in us finally have our attention? Do we trust that there’s something true to be tended in us?

How we respond to that invitation will mean so much more than mental wellness. The small truths in us, clamoring for our attention, are deeply connected to the Truth at work in all things.

As grown-ups, most of our days are spent suppressing this Current — so many expectations pressing upon us, shaping us as responsible citizens. Our time, our energy, our emotions have to be managed to function in the world. (1/2) Click To Tweet

But while we’re training our energies and attentions to conform to the things expected of us, that Current still flows underneath it all. (2/2) Click To Tweet

And when we finally let the things in us emerge with no time constraints, no pressure to adhere to anyone else’s expectations, it won’t always be pretty. We’ll need courage to endure the surge and overwhelm of newly released feelings and unspoken thoughts. It’s uncomfortable to lose control — what if painful emotions arise? Or questions we can’t answer? But all of Scripture — from the Psalms to Gethsemane — tell us there’s something on the other side of every ugly cry.

On a daily basis for me this means protecting the squishy, human moments between all the stiff structure of my life. I’m disciplined about going on a prayer walk every morning but I no longer discipline my mind to start praying the moment I leave the house. My ears take in the birdsong, my heart slows to the pace of my feet, and I begin to attune to the swell in me. Without judgment I name the physical feelings, the emotions, the instincts and urges. After 30 minutes of walking, I have a few sentences to say to God: “I release to you all that’s not you, I welcome your life in me. May the flow of this little life join the flow of your life in me and in all Creation.” This walk and this prayer do not resolve all the problems in my life, or the world, but it gives me a new way to see God’s life-flow in all things, and my small joining with it. Before I enter into my work day, I sit on the river bank, breathe deeply, and sing, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our most high God. God is within her, she will not fail, he helps her at break of the day.” And as I sing, I know the river is not only outside of me and the “she” is not only the city of God.

When I have more time at my disposal, like during vacation, this choice to pay attention to the Current means being unsurprised if my first day of rest is spent in tears. It means allowing for sleep and journalling and deep conversations. After days of this, I begin to remember who I am. When I let my mind and heart go where they want, I rarely understand where they lead, and I rarely feel in control. But in the same way that the water in the sink has the same habits as water in the ocean, this Current in us has learned its ways from the greater Current of God in the world. It might be in indirect ways but it always leads me somewhere true. This Current asks me to attend to pain and confusion — things I’d rather avoid. But in time, I rediscover creativity and joy. And so, by the end of vacation, I’m making things again. I’ve remembered the child who lived full-time in creative flow.

So I’m starting to see how this Current in us is not ours alone but a reflection of the larger Current of God flowing in all things — the Source of all life, love, and creativity — and whose song all Scripture sings. This is Psalm 46’s river whose streams make glad the city of God, the river from which the ever-flourishing tree draws in Psalm 1. This is the river whose grand fullness awaits us in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22), its currents nourishing the tree of life whose leaves heal the nations. This is not just water which gives life, it itself is alive — if we could drink it, we would never be thirsty again (John 4). This flow nourishes, like sap coursing through an abiding branch, bursting into fruitfulness (John 15). Considering lilies (Matthew 6) lets us learn a lily’s way of receiving liquid life, allowing this life to do its good work in us.

The medieval abbess, artist, and theologian, St. Hildegard of Bingen, had such a vision of this greening power that she had to create a word for it, Viriditas, combining the Latin words for green and truth. She saw God as the life force which puts forth buds every spring, which restores physical wounds, which births each child, and which heals our sin. Wouldn’t we say that the truth of God’s own existence is, itself, the power of life? Doesn’t Scripture say that the very life of God courses through everything, including our own selves?

Hildegard cautions, “Pay careful attention, lest with all the fluctuations of your thoughts the greening power which you have from God dries up in you.” As Jeremiah 17 has it, the one whose heart turns away from the Lord becomes like a bush in the wastelands, dwelling in the parched places of the desert. This is not a curse God puts on us to punish us for turning from him, this is a natural outcome when we withdraw from his Current. As Jesus puts it, when a branch disconnects from the vine it withers and dies (John 15:4-6).

This Current in us is not ours alone but a reflection of the larger Current of God flowing in all things — the source of all life and love and creativity — and whose song all Scripture sings. Click To Tweet

This life-current in Scripture is a reality which already exists, not something for us to make or attain. In fact, our efforts often keep us from it. Scripture asks us to trust that all creation is steeped in the freshness of God’s own life, and to purposefully clear out everything in us and the world which keeps us from joining it.

Every place of despair and exhaustion in us is a place which needs the Current. This doesn’t have to be a judgemental assessment of ourselves, but a simple reminder to return. When we’re physically thirsty, we don’t beat ourselves up. Thirst simply means our body is communicating a need, inviting us to find water. When our spirits are parched, our minds overwhelmed, there’s also truth in that — our spirit is communicating a need. We’re lacking something which is actually, literally, essential for survival. How can we redirect toward it?

How can we join that Current, at least a little each day? It might sweep us off our feet, it might confuse us. But there is something true to be found in us that takes some time to discern, something real that we’re supposed to bring to the world. This kind of life might mean carrying a tiny notepad in our pockets to let a little of that Current leak out in the middle of a lunch break or recording the song that hums in us when we’re driving home from work. It might mean having the courage to talk to someone about the feelings that want to be expressed or letting the tears flow freely in the shower.

In contrast to Jeremiah’s withered, wilderness tree, he also describes a different kind of tree. God himself promises that the one who trusts in the Lord, “will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8).

I don’t see a promise from Jeremiah in his words that life will always be easy. What I read is a promise that we have access to a source of Life bigger than our own life. It is already in and around us. Our work is to resist every thing that wants to keep us from it.

As I write, I find myself at the end of one of the most emotionally and physically draining seasons of my life. In many ways I’m not flourishing. My heart still races at the first sign of conflict. The shadows under my eyes still linger. And at the same time, I’ve come to trust more than ever that every anxiety, every heart flutter, every sleepless night holds a truth which wants to direct me back to the Current surging in all things.

I’m still figuring it out but I know this: There’s an uncanny Life in me – A Life not mine alone.

Scripture asks us to trust that all creation is steeped in the freshness of God’s own life and to purposefully clear out everything in us and the world which keeps us from joining it. Click To Tweet

A Few Places to Begin Slowing to Join the Greater Current:

1. Participate in something that’s bigger than you: 

• • Find a large body of water or a pool and float. Let yourself be held up by something stronger than you.
  • Let yourself be immersed in a body of people — the swaying of a worship service or the surge of a crowd at a sports event.

2. Take the risk to pay attention to what you’re feeling right now: Breathe and listen to your senses, your body, your instincts. Are you angry? Overwhelmed? Conflicted? Maybe you’re just a bit sleepy? Or simply hungry. Take a few minutes to attend to whatever emerges with no judgement. Talk to someone about it if it’s more than you can handle alone.

• • If it’s been a while since you attended to your feelings, you might find the Mood Meter app helpful (Download here on the Apple’s App Store; and here on Google Play).
  • If it’s been a while since you attended to your body, you might enjoy Brain Dance.

Songs on Spotify to Invite the Slowing:

1. O Viridissima, by Hildegard (in this contemporary arrangement by David Lynch) holds up Mary as “branch of freshest green.”

2. Psalm 46 by Bifrost Arts

3. Psalm 1 by Poor Bishop Hooper

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Mandy Smith is an Australian pastor, artist and author. Her books include The Vulnerable Pastor (2015) and Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith Beyond the Baggage of Western Culture (2021). Her next book, Confessions of an Amateur Saint, will be released in October 2024. Mandy and her husband Jamie, a New Testament professor, live in their parsonage where the teapot is always warm. Learn more at her site: www.thewayistheway.org.

I’ve come to trust more than ever that every anxiety, every heart flutter, every sleepless night holds a truth which wants to direct me back to the Current surging in all things. (1/2) Click To Tweet

I’m still figuring it out but I know this: There’s an uncanny Life in me – A Life not mine alone. (2/2) Click To Tweet