I was never a puzzle person, but my mom was, particularly as her children became adults and had homes of their own. Sometimes, she placed all the pieces of the puzzle to be done on a card table set up in the family room. Carefully she turned over each piece, revealing their colors and patterns as well as their shapes. Slowly, piece at a time, with the image on the lid of the puzzle box as a guide, the picture emerged in the center of the table.
When I came to visit, I’d join her to add a few pieces. When we found some that connected but whose place in the big picture was still a mystery, we’d snap them together and arrange them around the puzzle in progress. Eventually, someone would see where they belonged.
In a roundabout way, a friend’s recent comment brought puzzle-solving with mom to mind. While my friend believes Love infuses all creation and gives life to the ever-expanding universe, she can’t imagine such a God loving her in particular. She experiences the love of those in her life and the Sacred in creation. But God loving her individually? She can’t believe it. “What difference can I possibly make’” she asked. “I’m just not that important.”
The first thought that came to me was an ongoing correspondence that I’d had years ago with a high school classmate’s cousin. He was a brother at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and she thought we’d enjoy exchanging letters. (No email then!) We did. At one point in our conversation, the image of God came up. Surprisingly, the metaphor of a puzzle came to mind. I wrote that I thought the Holy One was an ongoing process. Since a bit of Divinity is shared with every person, God could not be revealed completely until the final person had lived. Like in a puzzle, one missing piece draws the eye to the empty spot and spoils the picture. I concluded, we are each important, like a puzzle piece, and contribute to the image of God. It isn’t finished.
I shared this memory with my friend. It helped. “Have you written a column about this?” she asked. So, here I am, during the Twelve Days of Christmas, pondering puzzles, Love, and the ongoing Incarnation.
Putting a puzzle together requires patience and paying close attention to the pieces you have, the emerging picture on the table, and the picture on the box lid. Similarly, being present and noticing, as Mary Oliver might say, is essential to experiencing the Sacred in our midst. We don’t have the “big picture” for a guide as puzzle solvers do, but I don’t think God does either. I’ve never been one who believed God has a specific plan for each of us. I’m more inclined to think that the Holy One shares a bit of Divinity with each of us and then gives us free reign to run with it, delighted with where we take it and what we do with it. Well, maybe not always, but we do have opportunities to recenter, change direction, and move on when needed!
Perhaps the mystery of creation and the One who put it in motion is like a puzzle with infinite pieces of many shapes, sizes and colors, and no picture as a guide. The puzzle keeps growing along the edges, the big picture emerging and changing, bit at a time. God, human beings, the cosmos and whatever it holds (I’ve always thought that would include other beings. How could it not?) all evolving together.
I thought of St. Bonaventure’s words: “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” The growing is around edges that extend from every point in every direction without end.
As I pondered these things during the Christmas season, another quote came to mind. This one is from Meister Eckhart, a 13-14th century priest, theologian, and mystic.
“What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my cutlure? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is aways needing to be born.”
No matter how one experiences the Sacred in life, or what one believes. No matter how one prays or lives, all are called to share Love that is shared with them. All are called to make the world a better place by bringing Sacred love and kindness into their time and space. That’s how I think of each person opening to and accepting the spark of Divinity and “running with it”.
My prayer for 2026 is that more and more people will do this. Take their gifts, their Love, and put them out there in the world, right where they are, to touch and heal and encourage and transform. And, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin advises, trust in the slow work of God.
I send with hope, wishes for blessed holiday and a new year that is kinder to the earth and all people and creation on it. A 2026 filled with the light of Divine Sparks.
“My name is Julius Sumner Miller, and physics is my business.” That’s how he opened every show. Physics was his business. So was wonder.