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Life Ways Fleeting
Glimpses
by Sr. Susan Helen Wallace, fsp Clock
Watching
Why is there something inside of me that winds up each morning like a clock and ticks away the minutes and hours? Sometimes I feel like I'm on remote control, like a bomb with a sizzling fuse. When will I step out of the clock and set my feet firmly on level ground? When will I allow myself to take in the bigger picture? When will I give myself permission to mull over the gift of a new day? When will I start to see the now as a telegram from my Creator? At that moment, I will recognize time for what it is - one more gift from God.
The thirst in our human heart is deeper than a parched mouth and throat. It's a craving for substance, the quenching of an arid field with rain, the downpour you watch from your veranda in spring, the blinding rain that pelts humid summer air at least for a few minutes. Rain is hope. Spiritual thirst is healthy. It drives us to search, to seek for God. It's an invitation to look deep inside ourselves for stillness. When that calm spreads over the desert of our soul, God unfolds his presence and fills us with peace.
Faith and worship have to cut through my day - a clean cut. It calls for a severing of so much of myself that is not worthy of the Lord. It means stepping outside of myself and facing the image in the glass. What do I really see? Baggage clinging to me like a magnet. I drag it down the bumpy road, a burdened traveler, disgruntled and vocal. While I survey my misery, I miss the sunrise, the clouds puffing along, the gentle breeze on my face, the reality that life is a gift. It's never too late to go back to that mirror and honestly admit the changes I need to make. I can face the baggage, open up the suitcases and empty each cumbersome thing, entrusting all to the mercy of Jesus. That's the only way I can continue my journey to joy.
Crosses are part of life. Every day experience attests to that. Newspapers and radio news reports confirm it too. So why is suffering so hard to accept? Why do I latch on to my current cross with dread, with annoyance or even denial? Because there's something within me that admits that crosses are part of life but there's another part of me that at least wants to pick my own cross. I am willing to let a reasonable amount of suffering into my ordinary day because that's what the human condition involves. But I want to be in control of the on and off switch and find that it's labeled: For God only!
I watch the people quietly file up the aisle to communion. They receive a plain white host, bow their heads and return to their pews. What's going on inside each of them? They are living tabernacles now. The Lord dwells in them and travels with them. Do they know it? Do they realize it? What could cause all those people to believe in the power of the bread? Doesn't it ever worry them that the bread might only be what it looks like? That it's nothing bigger and deeper than what it appears to be? Doubts like that can come to anyone. We can brush them away quickly like we would a fly or a bee. It is then that we can say with all our hearts the words of the apostle, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28).
I'm all alone in the church, except for a silent Presence in the tabernacle. I hardly realize that the Eucharistic dweller is there for me. I've got so many problems to solve, so many plans to make. It all depends on me.
This quiet holy place is an oasis. The sanctuary lamp glows. Slowly my gaze fixes on the tabernacle. I've been missing it. I came to a palace for an audience with the king and then sat there in his presence talking to myself. Human folly in the presence of divine patience.
Did you ever notice how babies smile, bounce and laugh? Everything is new and exciting to them. They thoroughly enjoy the ordinary. Their lives are so simple. Parents know that if babies cry they're hungry. They have few basic needs, no psychological nuances. Simplicity is uncluttered. In a room crowded with people, babies can spot their parents. What do they say to themselves? There's the couple who loves me, who feeds me, who walks the halls with me on restless nights? Do babies see their parents as extensions of themselves? Do they realize how trusting they are? If each of us could find God in our cluttered lives and search him out as a child does, wouldn't we have a fuller, richer life?
Who teaches babies to smile? Who puts that bright look of expectancy on their faces? Who offers the training program for babies' laughter? Is it pre-natal or post-natal or both? Children in church look over their parent's shoulder and scan the audience. What do they see? How do they size up individuals? Adults, children, women, men? Do they notice if people are old or young? What do they see? How do they perceive? And when they gaze quietly at a grownup, what are they thinking? What is their mind doing? When they quietly survey their surroundings, are they listening to an inner voice that enlightens them about everyone and everything they see? What a mystery a baby is; what a delightful mystery that only God can accomplish. Every virtue has an attraction to us human beings. We can find these virtues in fleeting glimpses or in more lasting moments of daily life. What can be more inspiring than the tranquility on the face of an elderly person praying in the early morning at church? Who cannot be edified by young parents who attend to their children in the pew at Sunday Mass? They bring talented children, energy bursting in wiggles and sighs. Those parents with a bottomless sack of play things patiently ration out diversions. They tell you with their smile that this is a small price to pay for participating in the Eucharist. A traffic jam because the light is broken. Rows of cars, drivers quiet and anxious, but not one of them honks the horn. Every day virtues that penetrate more deeply than the most powerful homily.
Copyright © 1999-2003, Daughters of St. Paul. All Rights Reserved.
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