To experience God's presence. On spirituality and transformation

On being conscious of transformation

An artist takes a piece of clay which has no form. It is a big, heavy blob, without form and pattern. The artist looks at it, feels it, forms it and creates a sculpture from it. The clay can do nothing at all in this process of its transformation. It is being transformed.

Spirituality as faith experienced brings about an awareness that this is exactly how humanity is being transformed. The prophet is told in Jeremiah 18 to see how the potter forms a clay pot. Yahweh then says to Israel – “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so ae you in my hand, O Israel.”

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) was one of the most sophisticated mystics of the Christian era. He underlines the immense gap between God, who is so totally different and exalted, and humanity. We cannot fathom God and our language is completely inadequate to describe God. And yet, he can also speak of the intimate relationship that God establishes with humanity. He writes that something in his deepest inner being tells him that no one and nothing is so close to him as God is. He is in his inner being completely dependent on God. His whole existence depends on God’s closeness to him and the divine presence in him. Of course, he adds, God is also there for a stone and a piece of wood. But a stone and a piece of wood is not aware of God’s presence. If only they knew it, the rock and the piece of wood would have been more blessed than angels.

Bricks and blocks do not know that God transforms. People with hearts of stone also do not know this. (And therefore create gods of stone and wood in their own image). It is only when one allows God’s voice, that you come to experience this. You cannot find this on your own. It must be brought to your attention. Softly, gently God speaks about this: listen, hear this, pay attention: you are renewed, peace will enter your heart, love will inhabit your heart if only you acknowledge your Maker, the One who Forms you into the divine image.

A firm part of Spirituality is transformation. But transformation has to be appropiated. We need to experience the mystery that God transforms us. It is only then that the great interaction takes place, that the spark ignites our soul and we experience the Divine Presence in us.


One has to be aware, in wonder and amazement, of the divine transformation. The dull, heavy heart will not be transformed. It will remain heavy like a blob of clay and hard like a block of wood.


Transformation has to be contemplated,reflected, appropriated. The sparks of the new divine life cannot fly if there is no connection....