Article January 6, 1997 Issue

As the symbols disappear

Patricia Tupper Hyatt

God's tender, parental love ever surrounds and envelops each of us. Divine Love guides, upholds, and maintains. Even though we may believe we don't always feel it or see its effect, God's omnipresent care is the here-and-now fact of being. This fact reveals itself in humanly understandable ways—in respect and fairness in relationships in the workplace, in faithful love in a marriage, in the gentle and consistent love of a parent for a child, in acts of kindness among strangers.

As we acknowledge God's love for His child in the present tense and embody this love in our daily contacts, we have whatever we presently need. That is, we see God's care and goodness symbolized in spiritual qualities manifest in our daily experience—in safety, supply, employment. These are usually considered to be things we need to get—an apartment, an income, a job. But it's more accurate to say that we each are living out in daily experience our present recognition, however small, of the goodness of God. Spirit.

Whatever points to the nurturing goodness of God is something to be grateful for. Yet, at the same time, each symbol of good must be kept in its proper perspective. A symbol of something points to the original, symbolizes it, but is not the substance of it. For example, a wedding band is a symbol of a couple's commitment to each other, but it is not the commitment itself. That which undergirds a symbol exists independently of the symbol. And a symbol with nothing backing it has no significance at all.

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