To Be a Saint

I've just finished reading a terrific book, My Life with the Saints, by James Martin. It is a sort of memoir, relating different periods of his life to different saints. One of the clear messages of the book is that God calls all of us to be saints. No matter what our limitations, no matter what our circumstances, God wants to make each one of us saints.

God is not calling us to be St. Joan of Arc or St. Francis of Assisi. God made each of us different, with a unique set of gifts and talents. God will make each of us saints in our own peculiar way. Thomas Merton said, "For me to be a saint means to be myself." God wants to make me all that God created me to be. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "You can do something I can't do. I can do something you can't do. Together let us do something beautiful for God."

To want to be a saint, then, is not pride. It is to want what God wants for me. Merton quotes a friend as saying, "All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don't you believe God will make you what He created you to be, if you consent to let Him do it? All you have to do is desire it." I do desire it.

Peace in God's Will

I am reading Dante's Paradiso, in a new translation by Jean Hollander with extensive notes by her husband, Robert. Several times over the years I have started reading Dante's The Divine Comedy, but I never made it out of Hell. So when I read a very good review of this new translation I decided to start in Heaven. I am hoping it might help me with my attempts at a more contemplative life-style.

In the third canto the first person Dante meets in heaven says, "In His will is our peace." This line was one I heard about when we studied T.S. Eliot in college. He refers to it in his own lines:

"Teach us to care and not to care.

Teach us to sit still,

even among these rocks

our peace in His will."

I have known, then, that this is the way to a peace that can possess our hearts even in the midst of pain and worry, but getting my will in sync with God's will is not easy. As I become more aware of God living in me and, especially, as I become better able to give myself to God within me, I want God to help me think the way God thinks and to want what God wants. In that way my will lines us more with God's will and I will be more and more at peace.

Blissful Stillness

Last Wednesday was a uniquely quiet day. There was not a ripple on the Lake. No breeze. Sometimes hours would go by without a boat anywhere in sight. No ducks. No geese. No sound, not even a distant sound of a lawn mower or of a truck backing up or of a dog barking.

The day was sunny and warm. The stillness and peace made me think of the silence of God. I found myself wondering if this were what heaven was like, this perfect bliss.

At a funeral yesterday I this is what we pray for when we say, "May they rest in peace." An end of suffering. But even more, to be held forever in the warm embrace of Blissful Stillness.

God in Others

If this attempt I am making to let God make me more aware of God's presence within me and around me in nature and art is authentic, then I should be able to find God in people as well.

It is easy to see the Divine shining in the people I love: relatives and friends and children such as those in this picture. It is not so easy to recognize God in the people who annoy me or take advantage of me or whose behavior makes me mad. God is not in the bad things or in the evil that people do, but God is in the persons who do them.

Recently I made a very deliberate effort to treat some people who were getting on my nerves the way I would treat God, to love them. The problem didn't entirely disappear, but that did help. I wasn't always on edge the way I had been with them earlier.

I do find God in people who need me for physical things such as for food or utilities; but when they are emotionally or psychologically needy it is not always easy for me. I pray that as I become more and more aware of God in me and in the beauty and goodness around me, I will find it easier to recognize the Divine shining in those I find unattractive.

Beauty, Truth, and Goodness as Default Settings

As I have been thinking about trying to make God the default setting of my brain I realize that part of the problem is that we are not pure spirit. We are also material and most of what we know and remember is material stuff. Our imagination is full of images of things.

So, one of the things to do, is surround myself with a lot of good and true and beautiful things that carry the Divine to me. Nature works overtime where I live to make our neighborhood beautiful. The view of the lake from my home is stunning. In my home I have beautiful pictures and objects that human beings have made. God is Beauty.

The things that I read put me in touch with the Truth. Both novels such as "Black Swan Green," and non-fiction such as "My Life with the Saints" have given me a more truthful view of the world than I had before I read them. God is Truth

Surrounding myself with good people, neighbors, friends, and relatives, also puts me in touch with the Divine. God is Goodness.

Hopefully the more I surround myself with Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, the more these kind of images will stick in my memory and imagination. Then when I am not intentionally doing something else, my mind would be more likely to jump back automatically to these images.

This helps to make God the default setting of my brain.

God on My Mind

Five days ago I was given an ultamatum. So far I have chosen not to do anything about it. Anytime that I am not occupied with something else my mind slips back to the ultamatum, wondering what to do, replaying the conversation. It has become the default setting of my brain.

I got to thinking how wonderful it would be if God were the default setting of my brain. When I am not actively involved in something else my mind would automatically slip back to God and God's presence in me and God's gracious love for me. Hopefully the more time I give to contemplation and prayer, the better chance there is of that happening.

God's presence in me is always the same, always complete. What would change is that the Divine would be what occupies my mind rather than an ultamatum about something very insignificant. Like the "desktop" on my computer, God would pop up whenever I wasn't thinking about something else.

Contemplation: Listening 2

The following quote from Helen Flexner in Volume 3 of Imaging the the Word helps me understand listening as contemplation: As a child I was told that grandfather spent an hour every morning and evening listening to God. So when I came suddenly upon my grandfather one day seated motionless in his armchair with closed eyes. I knew he was not asleep. He was talking with God. I stopped short where I was and stood very still. Perhaps if I listened intently enough I might hear God’s voice speaking to my grandfather. But the room remained quiet, not even the faintest whisper reached my ears. After a long time my grandfather opened his eyes, saw me and smiled at me gently. These moments of intense listening for God’s voice in the room with my grandfather are among the most vivid memories of my early childhood.