Relishing God's great gifts--in our homes.

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: Man's relationship with God - Religion

FROM TIME immemorial, humans have decorated their environment and themselves. The cave paintings of Lascaux are evidence of a keen eye and skilled execution; if only more modem galleries showed such expressive me of line and observation. Centuries later, ancient peoples of every land continued to employ decoration for worship and pleasure. Life was short and often difficult, and the gods were far off, potentially dangerous, and to be appeased. Thus was the majority of peoples' relationship with the material world versus the world of spirit.

This relationship shifted dynamically and irrevocably in the story of the Jewish people. The Creator had been far off and aloof. Beginning rather abruptly with the Covenantal relationship with Abraham, the great I AM was with His people. The immanent had emerged in the material world and, as a result, the material world was stretched into something more. The relationship with the Creator permeated every aspect of daily fife; the small matters of daily life became rich with not only material, but spiritual import_ When God visited His people, their way of viewing the world fundamentally changed.

The evidence of this shift in emphasis became concrete when Moses was given the Law, and the altered relationship between God and humans continued. This was a Creator who called David, "a man after My own heart." This was a God with a heart; the relationship had been changed, elevating the dust of humanity towards the heavens. This intimate relationship continues with the Jewish people to this day, and Christianity has carried forward an intimate engagement with God since splitting off from their parents in the first century A.D.

The way in which you live the most minor events of daily life change if you believe that your Creator is with you and has an interest in humanity. The material world is not merely dust, but the means through which we experience the presence of God. Jews and Christians alike remind themselves of the relationship of God with His people; mezuzahs hearken back to the Passover and God's intercession, freeing His people from slavery and the reception of the Law in the desert. Circumcision is a profound reminder that, even within the most intimate moments, one is marked as part of a society and in relationship with one's Creator. For Christians, the various Sacraments (e.g., baptism, confirmation) and sacramentals (e.g., candies, crucifixes, rosaries, etc.) are reminders of the infusion of God's...