Oh Cuddle Divine!

                             Oh cuddle divine
                        arms as big as outer space 
                             trigger sweet release

This haiku was written by Isobel Sally Davis, an artist and kindred spirit I met online. Doesn't it speak to the tender relationship that we all have with God?  It reminds me of the term Jesus used when praying to God: "Abba, Father." 

Browsing on the internet, I came across this explantion of the word "Abba" from a website called JesusWalk.com:

Jesus and his disciples read Hebrew in the synagogue, but in everyday speech and preaching used a closely related language, Aramaic. In Biblical Hebrew ab is "father." But in Aramaic abbā is a word derived
from  baby-language. As the Rabbis said, a small child "learns to say abbā (daddy) and immā (mummy)." In the pre-Christian era the usage of the word broadened so that "... Abbā as a form of address to one's father was no longer restricted to children, but also used by adult sons and daughters. The childish character of the word ("daddy") thus receded, and abbā acquired the warm, familiar ring which we may feel in such an expression as  "dear father."

 While nowhere in the entire devotional literature of ancient Judaism is abbā a way of addressing God, in
Jesus' teaching and  practice, such an expression was the norm. Abbā as a transliteration of  the Aramaic word into the Greek, appears three times in the New Testament:

     +"'Abba, Father,' he said, 'everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'" (Mark 14:36)
      +"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" (Romans 8:15)
      +"Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.'" (Galatians 4:6)

This explanation helps elevate the relationship we have with our human fathers and lets us see the tenderness, protection and guidance that are the spiritual basis of true fatherhood.  And we can take our understanding of God's tender intimacy to see that it applies to everything we do.  Because we know of God's love, we can see that love expressed in our relationships to one another.  Our relationship to God shows us that we have an intimate connection to what is infinite and that we are at home wherever we are in the universe.  The protective and loving embrace of Abba, our Father, can be experienced when we play, when we challenge ourselves or are in challenging situations.

Oh Cuddle Divine!  It makes me laugh to say it!  We are the loved of Love, wherever we are and whatever we do.  And we can experience the divine cuddle in:

---

...our relationships with one another...

...establishing our place in the infinite universe....

...and when we play, and in our challenges, in our triumphs and in our prayer.