Monday, July 1, 2013

31 Days with Ignatius: Finding God in All Things


 
 
I'm not necessarily going to write something in response to each of the 31 Days hosted this month by Loyola Press (see the sidebar for a link to the site), or even to most of them ~ but I will to some of them.
 
This first day's theme happened to be the subject of some of my conversation with my spiritual director this past week.
 
Do you know how hard it is to find God in all things?  God creating and giving, God dwelling, God laboring, God loving ~ in all things? 
 
It sounds easy, I know.  "How I have loved this life," says the narrator pastor in Gilead, in one of my all-time favorite lines in literature.  But then I spend a lot of time with people whose loved ones lost sight of their love for this life long enough to end theirs, and I know how treacherous and tiring is the road back for their survivors.
 
Look at the beauty of nature ~  look at my birds, the five little house finches who hatched and grew up in my geranium basket.  But the sixth didn't make it, and today I ran over a chipmunk who darted into the street too fast for me to respond.
 
Look at Nelson Mandela, to whose triumphs we are so attentive at the moment.  But there were those 27 years in prison.  Most of us would say that those years honed a leader and a nation and a world.  But they are still years lost to the family of a husband and a father, not to mention to the man himself.
 
It is not easy, not if you are paying attention at all, to find God in all things.  But if you avoid paying attention, because it's too difficult to do so, then you will miss the key to the conundrum.
 
My first spiritual director says that, "First you have to find God in some things."  For most of us, baby steps.
 
Andy Otto's post is an excellent guide for those of us who are always beginning.


 

6 comments:

  1. This is a thought-provoking post. You are right that it isn't easy to find God in all things but we need to keep searching; at times it is easier than at other times. But our faith is founded on the belief that God is in all things so we keep putting one foot in front of the other. I appreciate your acceptance that there are those "who are always beginning". Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "It is not easy, not if you are paying attention at all, to find God in all things. But if you avoid paying attention, because it's too difficult to do so, then you will miss the key to the conundrum."

    This brought instant tears to my eyes.
    Thank you for sharing the thought about finding God in some things. That I can do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A very wise spiritual director to say first find God in things.

    ReplyDelete