We need to begin to recognize God in places where we would never, perhaps, have suspected [God’s] presence before, and not only in the big city or in the places of our enemies, but also in the many seemingly banal and bizarre circumstances of our lives. * * * * * But to learn this lesson, really to learn it, we need to undergo the grace and mystery of bewilderment. --Dominican priest and poet Paul Murray, in Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, today
What a gift that priest-poet's quote is to me. His topic is Jonah in the whale, and he goes on to say how Jonah’s journey of transformation is one that all of us must undergo.
For whatever reason...rightly, God's will, God's way, or wrongly, self-determined objective...my life today seems to me to be going upside down and backward.
Many of my friends are doubling their exercise time...walking five miles, ten miles, etc., daily. My bum knees get me to my car, and that's close enough to perfect for me. So I've decided to start exercising my mind...and this time of upside-down ankle-biters is my journey of transformation.
I speak true when I say it is hard. Very hard. Interestingly, detaching my thoughts is coming fairly easy, but the likes of getting my new electric blanket turned OFF? Could not do it...so I went back to bed and slept for an hour, and it's preset time shut the blanket off.
Then, my preferred cable channel could not be reached...that channel is the sole reason I signed up with my new provider. I finally unplugged the TV set...it may or may not be working now. Peace.
All of this is me "exercising my mind." Trying to think my way to the factory-approved right answers, and with neither temper nor tears, accepting those cut-and-paste results fills me with gratitude. When the end result is gratitude, I get an Atta Girl!
I start anew tomorrow...I'm reading a trashy romance this afternoon.
Thank you.
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