Our lesson from the Hebrew scripture today relates the delightful story of Moses’ glimpse of God’s back after the Divine Goodness and Glory had passed by him. The passage include the precious details where God tell Moses, “I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by, and then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back.” We can see God’s tender loving protection and care for us expressed in those words.

The Beloved wants us to be aware of the Divine Presence and continues to give us mystical glimpses of God in the here and now. In my experience a glimpse is usually brief and unexpected. If, when we notice it, we try to hold onto the experience, we find it disappears. Such a glimpse doesn’t necessarily involve the eyes however. We have other senses that may become aware of the glimpse, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, for example. We may hear with our outer ears the voice of God as clearly as if the Holy One were standing beside us. Our inner ears can hear in a similar way that we can realize is not our mind talking. We may smell something unusually pleasant when nothing is there; some folks notice to the aroma of roses or incense. With the sense of touch we may experience what feels like an arm drawing us into an embrace or something like oil pouring on top of our head and running down onto our shoulders when no one is touching us. The psalmist calls us to “ . . . taste and see that the Lord is good,” (38a) and we may experience that inwardly, mystically as we partake of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ outwardly in every Eucharist.

Some people refer to these glimpses of God as the fingerprints of God or the footprints of God. No matter how you may have identified them, pause and reflect on how you have experienced them in your life, and be grateful.