A light that is not liked

Seeing and not seeing. It's often a topic here on Monastic Ponderings. I become conscious because I want to see. I practice compassion so that my heart will respond better and know more. I meditate so that I am aware. It all implies a willingness to journey. But there is another aspect to journey: a willingness to accept what that journey brings us.

It happens that sometimes I fail to see, not because I am spiritually blind, but because I don't like what I find. The revelation is not what I expected, I had hoped for more, or less, or better. I find myself in disbelief that after all I've done, this is the result? And so my journey has brought me to a point I do not want to be, with a decision I do not want to make, and a revelation I do not like. The resistance can be ever so slight, but it is there. And I wish I had remained blind…

It just goes to show that no one ever "arrives" at a place where struggle ceases, despite rhetoric to the contrary. The journey will always have its challenges, and we will always have choices. Paul complained about his own battles, and received this reply: "My grace is sufficient for you."(2 Cor. 12:9).

Perhaps this is the meaning of psalm 139:12 Darkness is not dark for you, and night will be light as the day. When I seek for light, I must realize, I may not like what I find. Revelation is not always exciting. Transformation may hurt.

But this too is journey.

Not waiting for tragedy to strike

I love to walk early in the morning, especially when the moon is out, and everything has an eerie glow, with moon shadows and moon light. I remember one such walk last summer, when I was working at the monastery, and thoughts were about recent events in the lack of vocations. My understanding is, vocations are always slow for dedicated religious life, and that the only times monasteries were rushed with applicants were after some drastic war, when death and suffering were very real in the minds of the young. Death and intense suffering do have a way of making us look for something deeper, more lasting, more eternal.

And that makes me wonder, why do we have to face death and suffering before we make God a serious part of our daily lives? For a death sentence strikes fear to those who know little of the Divine Being. And learning about God in the here and now can bring so much peace and joy.

My thoughts go to a deathbed I witnessed while I lived in the monastery, where the rather young sister was dying of cancer. Death was not fearful for her. She greeted it with a joy so profound and a peace so deep it is hard to describe. This attitude affected me very much, as I was one of her caregivers, and saw her suffering, her quick decline, and her willingness to accept it all. She had made God her friend, and so she could welcome death because she believed she was going to someone she knew, someone she had thought about often.

It demonstrates just how powerful friendship with the Divine can be, and why we should not wait for suffering or death to force the issue.

Which brings me back to some of my thoughts of moonlight in early morning darkness. I think it resembles living without an awareness of spiritual things. We can see, but in a dim way. Faith has always been called a light, a light so steady that no suffering or death can dim it. More importantly, there is so much joy to be had in building a spiritual relationship with the Divine it is a pity so few seek to develop one while life is going well.

Let's not wait for death to force spirituality upon us. Let us develop a relationship now, in the fullness of health.  Divinity is waiting for us.