"Outward" | Reflection by Jeanne Kerr

A few weeks ago we watched with awe as the NASA spacecraft, Perseverance Rover, dropped down in the correct spot on planet Mars, with the aid of its colorful parachute! All the Rover's systems turned on, miraculously, as the engineers back at Cape Canaveral in Florida cheered! This was certainly a triumph of looking outward from Earth!

Today, as I drove out Whitney Avenue to Spring Glen in Hamden, I saw a sign on the fence at St. Rita School that said, “Ever wonder where is God?” When I was a child I thought God lived in the sky, rather like the monumental painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, as painted by Michelangelo. Of course, now that we on Earth can look outward into space, we see that that is not exactly the case.  

God also doesn’t “live" in Trinity Church, although we feel close to God there. I believe that we do need to look outward beyond ourselves to experience God in other people, in God’s extraordinary and diverse creation, in beautiful places, in the gifts of music, arts, literature and intelligence with which God has blessed human beings. Of course we experience God most clearly in the experience of love.

Words in the Wilderness - Walk through the season of Lent with Trinity, one word at a time. Every day (except on Sundays) we will post a photo and a brief refection written by someone in our Trinity community. https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/words-in-the-wilderness