This is it

Sitting in a restaurant, Daniel J. O’Leary writes:

“The Budweiser tastes weak; the cajun-style chicken is spicy and tasty. It is stifling hot outside; the air-conditioning inside is heaven. A small child’s face is all crumpled up with loss and fear – she has just inadvertently burst her red balloon. Her sister offers her own. One grandparent chides her; the other smiles. There’s music in the background – country and western songs from the sixties. A murmur of conversation. The telephone rings. A loud laugh draws attention to itself. Another car sweeps into the parking lot. Bright with smiles, energy, mutual adoration and jewelry, two young black people flow out of the car and dance into The Village Inn. The telephone rings again.

I come back to my thoughts. So this is it. If I’m right, here in front of me the true nature of God is being revealed. Right here and right now the paschal mystery is gradually unfolding in all its ordinariness and in all its glory. All I have to do is be present to it – really and truly present to it in a way that sees into the heart of things. This kind of worship is more than a superficial noticing; it is a becoming-one with what happens, and therefore a becoming one with God. It is the practical implication of what our best catechisms and our current Eucharistic Prayers keep reminding us about, namely the presence of God everywhere – the God ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’.”

Yesterday wasn’t a good day for me. A factory called and said there’s something wrong with one of the crimping rollers that I have manufactured. Turned out to be a mistake on my part. On the way back I drove into a car in front of me at the turn-off from the highway. Fortunately not too serious, but nevertheless something that has to be sorted out in the course of the next few days and another item on the crowded expenses list. And I still had to stop at the hardware store to get extra flood lights that I want to install at the workshop after an attempted burglary earlier this week.

As O’Leary says, this is it. This is where spirituality plays itself out.

If spirituality isn’t working here, doesn’t somehow use this as material for growth and transformation, doesn’t see it as the setting where it operates, but rather feels uncomfortable and out of place in these surroundings, then it’s an alien to the human condition. And all the putting on of robes, singing of hymns, saying a prayers, attending of church services, pouring over of pious dressing and constantly stepping aside without totally immersing itself in this life, these bad days, won’t be of service to our faith. Sad to say, we’ll be able to pride ourselves for doing a lot of things, but getting to know God won’t be one of them.

That said I have to confess that God, in this setting, has to teach me to be present and see into the heart of things. He has his work cut out for him.

George