It’s not something we see much lately: the spirit of reverence. The respectful posture toward life is becoming a lost art—but we mustn’t let this happen. In fact, reverence toward God, creation, and the other might just save the future.
Maybe the problem with the death of reverence is that even those of us who value it misunderstand it. Take Jesus, crossing a field with his disciples. They’re hungry, so they pick grains as they go, winnowing with their hands to make a coarse meal. It’s the Sabbath, but the stomach has no calendar, only a clock. When it’s time to eat, the stomach lets you know.
Some religious elders, looking on, object. Such rude winnowing is work and defies the Sabbath law. Perhaps Jesus takes exception to their criticism, or maybe he’s amused. What’s more reverent: to honor personal pieties or the even more personal rumble in the belly?
Our Collect prayer today asks that we develop a deeper sense of reverence than rote capitulation to laws and rituals. Reverence is more than gestures and postures to assume before sacred objects or ideas. Codes of conduct matter, but so
does the sanctity of life in all its glorious and mysterious variety. We exercise true reverence by acknowledging the presence of the Holy in every time and place—before tabernacles and shrines, flowers and forests, friends and strangers, natural abundance and human need. Where, honestly, can you look and not find the Divine within it all?

Alice Camille

Alice Camille is the author of twenty books, including A Little Book of Light and other titles at alicecamille.com.