Right in Front of Our Eyes

Once when I was a boy I was trying to find something — I don’t remember now what it was — but this thing ended up being right there on the table in front of me. My father laughed as he pointed it out to me and said, “If it had been a snake, it would have bitten you.”

As a child, that metaphor scared me a little. What IF it had been a snake? What IF I hadn’t seen it there on the table, hiding among my father’s copies of National Geographic and Organic Gardening, slithering toward me between his overflowing ashtray and transistor radio? I learned to look closely around me for the things I was searching for before I started asking for help. Lesson learned: pay attention to the obvious and the close at hand.

In our search for God, sometimes the same thing happens. We miss the obvious moments and occurrences of the Divine because we’re frantically searching for something “out there,” something that is big and splashy and without-a-doubt “God,” when all the time there are these small, ordinary experiences that we’re missing, hidden among the ordinary stuff of life.

Finding God in our daily lives does not require special abilities or tools. We do not have to be particularly holy, although focusing our minds on the holy around us can be a good place to begin. What is required is our intention — a desire and willingness to pay attention to the life we have been given and find God already there waiting for us, beckoning to us, laughing at us and saying, “If I had been a snake…”

I recently wrote a new song on this theme, this idea that God is “right there,” always in front of our eyes. God doesn’t hide from us. God is always waiting to be found, always delighted when we slow down, pay attention and utter those sacred words: “Ah…there you are.”

Here are the lyrics to the song, and a new video is below (you may have to scroll a little). Thanks to my musical collaborator Phil Cooper for the beautiful piano arrangement and to my talented daughter, Jenny, for creating the vocal arrangement and singing with me. In the midst of the creation of this song I found God again — in the act of creation, in the gift of words and music, in the chemistry that happens when we gather together to create something new.

There you are, there you are
in the green that clothes the trees
There you are, there you are
in the very least of these.

Some days I rise but do not waken.
Sometimes I look but fail to see.
And still, you move and catch my eye
A flash of red, a moment fleeting.

In all the noise I cannot hear you.
In all my words I miss your voice.
And still, a whisper fills my head
A gentle beating, inside of me.

Today I saw you on the street
With all you own spread out around you.
And still, a spirit in your smile
A soul on fire, a gift before me.

There You Are
Words and music by Steve Givens
© 2023 Potter’s Mark Music