September 4, 2018

By Stephanie Terril, SHCJ Associate, American Province

A few years ago a friend mentioned a song by Joan Osborne, “What if God was one of us?”  I searched for it on YouTube:

What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.

It became a prayer for me in public spaces – waiting on subway platforms, riding in subway cars or busses, standing in line at a grocery store, walking across 14th Street.  It comes to mind anywhere there are people, in all their human variety and conditions: worn, energetic, exhausted, blue collar, white collar, babies in strollers, little kids.  And I am always touched realizing that God truly is one of us, is intimately present within each one of us.

This little habit tends to make me smile.  It counterbalances thinking of God as utterly transcendent, the ‘Wholly Other.’  I feel like I am looking at God, that God is all around me, right there in a grocery store.

In my neighborhood in Manhattan there are lots of homeless: bedraggled, sometimes filthy, addicted, sometimes young lost sheep.  And then too I know I am looking at God, who is suffering with them and who knows their worry and weariness.  This is our God, ever humble and oh so near.

(Click here to see a lovely version of “What if God was one of us?” on Youtube.)