“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Somehow, as I was growing up, I missed the truth of that scripture with my mental picture of the transcendent God on his throne in heaven, assuming with the poet, “God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world.” Even realizing the immanence of God, my image of God’s presence just broadened a bit to be around, beneath, above, beside, behind, in front of me as expressed in St. Patrick’s breastplate. Somewhere along the way, probably around midlife, I finally got it; perhaps it was when I discovered ruach, that the Spirit of God and the Breath of God are the same word in Hebrew, that it is the enlivening Spirit of God that breathes in and through me, as God breathed life into Adam in the beginning.

Because “a picture is worth a thousand words,” it has been a delight for me to discover the icon entitled “The Virgin of the Sign,” which, as I have described before, pictures the indwelling Christ in the center of the Virgin, who stands with open, upraised hands in the orans (praying) position against as background of gold leaf, representing for me shekinah, the glory of God, the enfolding presence of God “in whom we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28a) That icon sits on a shelf across the room from my prayer chair to remind me that God does dwell in the center of my being, that I am a temple of God and, as the stencil across the front of the nave in Trinity Church proclaims, “The Lord is in his holy temple,” (Hab.2:20) and that nothing can separate me from the love of God (Rom.8:38-39). The icon calls me to be open to what God has prepared for me day by day—to “let it be with me according to [God’s] word” (Lk.1:38), to accept the healing presence of God in my life bringing me to health in body, mind, and spirit, to trust the sanctifying love of God working deep within to make me whole and holy.

As Moses told the Israelites in our lesson form the Hebrew scriptures today, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” It is God’s indwelling that makes it so.