I See God | September 6, 2026 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton
I see God in every scented rose
I see God in everything that grows
I see God in gentle falling rain
In the snow that falls up on the plain
I see God at sunrise everyday
In the smile of children as they play
High above like the birds up on the wing
And I see God, oh, God is everything
I see God at starlight evening skies
In the love that fills a mother's eyes
Standing by to help when trouble falls
And I see God, I know that God is all
The opening music from Mahalia Jackson struck me as something we can use as a meditation…as a prayer for our current journey. These are difficult days. We need to remind ourselves that the all-pervading presence is just that…all-pervading…in the rose, the rain, the children and the birds…it is the presence of the Great Spirit all around us (and in us). It is what fills us as we prepare for the work we must do each day.
May we remind ourselves of this as we consider the following piece by Olive Schreiner entitled, The Workers:
In a far-off world, God sent two Spirits to work. The work he set them to do was to tunnel through a mountain. And they stood side by side and looked at it. And they began to work. They found that the place they had to work in was too narrow; their wings got interlocked. They saw they would never get through the mountain if they worked at it only from that one place.
And one spirit said to the other,
“You stay here; I will go and work from the other side.”
And it flew away. And they worked on, each from his side of the mountain.
And after years in the dark, each one heard the sound of the other’s axe,
picking, and they knew they were getting near - that the other was at work.
But before they got to the center, these spirits’ sleep-time came;
and God sent other spirits to take their work and place.
But they had heard each other’s axes picking, in the dark;
that was enough for them.
This story comes from the book A Track to the Water’s Edge, edited by Dr. Howard Thurman. I read this powerful story to a friend dealing with his own mortality…his own sleep-time. This was a powerful reframing of our ability to see life as…a single respiration – the ebb and flow of a single tide. This story also highlights the fact that where our work ends, others will take it up. Much like the story of a track to the water’s edge that we considered last week. The woman was told that though she may not cross the river, she will be part of making a track to the water’s edge. If we are part of this work…of this single respiration…if we are connected like the roots under our feet, then we do not have to start from scratch, but we can build upon the work of our ancestors…upon whose shoulders we stand.
I was thinking of some of these ancestors this past week in my reflection of the passing of Gloria Steinem and the idea of Labor Day tomorrow. Gloria Steinem was an extraordinary woman who was deeply dedicated to her work…the work of recognizing and fighting for the rights of all people…of women, in a time when women’s rights were so often denied, of others whose rights were denied, including immigrants, African Americans, and other people of color. When asked how she felt about this happening again with our fascist government, rolling back the hard-won protections she and others fought for, she stated that she was hopeful. She seemed to say, as Olive Schreiner said, that others will take up the work. She stressed that fact that she did not do the work alone and that there are many still living. Steinem has now joined the ranks of the ancestors.
There are so many ancestors to speak of. One that I will highlight is Francis Perkins. Born in 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts, Perkins was the Secretary of Labor for 12 years, the first woman to hold a cabinet position and was an architect of FDR’s New Deal. She worked tirelessly in New York State, Chicago, and the federal government for worker’s rights. This, at a time when women were not encouraged to access higher education or a professional life at all. Her view on the role of government is reflected in the following words:
The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.
Wow! Imagine that…the best possible life! What would she say to the current reality of fascist rule? She would presumably insist, as we do, that the government…of, for and by the people, must be for the benefit of people…all people. Secondly, she would have stated that all the people deserve the best possible life. This would include not only fair and humane treatment as workers, but also something she worked toward, but did not win…universal healthcare.
Other ancestors that I would like to highlight were A. Philip Randolph, a prominent voice in both the civil rights movement and the labor movement, and Bayard Rustin, the main organizer of the March on Washington in 1963. Howard Thurman also attended that March. What would Perkins, Randolph, Rustin and Thurman say to our current reality? Well, we know what Thurman would probably say. He didn’t write a lot about what we would term politics, but he did write an essay entitled The Fascist Masquerade in which he stated:
Totalitarianism is a threat to, and the enemy of, liberty… its power works inevitably towards the absolute and it cannot survive with any competitor.
Watch for the signs in your community,
whatever may be the banner or the masquerade.
This essay was written in 1946…during his time at this church. He was, in his own words,
I have just completed an essay on the ‘Fascist Masquerade’ which marks my venturing into a brand new field of creative expression…
This essay illustrates first of all, what was happening in 1946 and Thurman’s recognition that it was not just happening elsewhere. He already knew of the unique American version of fascism. Thurman grew up amid the horrors of this particular form of fascism. He used several American institutions as examples of this reality…the Christian American, the Nationalists and the Ku Klux Klan. He was clearly aware of the danger that these groups, and others like them posed. He had first-hand experience with them and he was not shy about naming them, even in an interracial and intercultural environment…and in a church! This is how unique and profound this beloved community is!
Thurman was critiquing not only our society, but also the church. He was broaching a subject that was rarely talked about outside of the Black community and outside of minority communities in general. He, in a way, went out on a limb, but this is the man who wrote the book, Jesus and the Disinherited just three years later. We know that Thurman had a connection to an oak tree and often wrote about them playing a prominent role in his childhood. This fascination with the oak tree was shared by Olive Schreiner, who, left these words, published in her book, From Man to Man:
As the oak tree cannot grow unless, with each new ring it adds,
its old bark cracks and splits, so humanity cannot develop
without the rupture of its old institutions and laws.
These profound words highlight the need for cracks…something I’ve spoken about before. There are cracks in our world and we must investigate them in order to fully experience the rupture of the old world and the heralding of the new…it is just on the horizon. Francis Perkins, who wrote toward the end of her life:
There is always a large horizon…There is much to be done...
I am not going to be doing it! It is up to you to contribute some small part
to a program of human betterment for all time.
Perkins was aware of what Schreiner was aware of…what Steinem was aware of and what all ancestors presumably know intimately…that we are not in this alone…we are connected to all that we see…to all others with whom we share our brink of time and beyond…as seen in the large horizon.
And it is in this horizon that we do indeed see God…in the oak tree and in the mountain through which the spirits tunneled. In the writing, the speaking and the singing of those who have come before. May we know that God is the great connector…the one who holds us all…in the palm of her hand…through time and space…calling on Mahalia Jackson again…
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