Brian Grogan, S.J. finds God busy behind the scenes as the haphazard events of each day unfold.
Since God can be found in all things, he can be found in all the events and experiences of everyday life. But where, you may ask, does God choose to meet us? In the Church and the tabernacle, in the Sacraments and in devotions such as the Stations of the Cross and the Rosary? Certainly!
Everywhere a God-zone
But God is to be found both when I am at Mass and when I miss Mass, when I am pious and when I am addled, when I am devout and when I am having a drink. The unemployed are no less valued by God than those who are blessed with work. Sexuality and family life are sacred no less than celibacy. Everywhere is a God-zone: all those bits of our lives which seem meaningless in themselves are being worked on by God so that they can have meaning within the vast story of human history.
Let us look in on an ordinary family, during a week full of things that just seemed to happen to them. We shall stay with Ann, the mother, as she looks back when it is all over and discovers, to her surprise, that she hadn’t been alone. God was there!
On Sunday evening her son visited and his parents were glad to see him. He is twenty-two, has studied English at university but has now decided to work as a cleaner until he sells his first novel. He moved out last year. Casually, while sitting at the table he said he hoped to go back to university. His mother’s heart missed a beat. She had always wanted him to get a proper job: could this be the answer. But he was penniless and wanted money for the application fee. With some misgivings – he smoked and drank any spare cash he had – they gave him the money.
Who could it be?
Each Monday Ann meets some friends to pray. On that particular night one of the group recounted the story of the abbot whose monastery had been famous for its holiness. But hard times had come and people no longer flocked there to nourish their spirit; the steam of young aspirants had dried up, the church was silent. Only a few sad and lonely monks remained.
When the abbot asked advice of a holy man, he was told that the situation had come about because of ignorance: one of the monks in the monastery was the Messiah in disguise and nobody recognised this fact.
Such excitement when he told his story to his companions! Imagine having the Messiah living with them. Who could it be? The holy man had said that the Messiah was in disguise, so each one’s defects, clearly visible to all the others, had to be part of the disguise. Since they could not recognise him, they took to treating each other with great respect. After all, one never knew! The monastery was very soon filled with joy and love.
Ann loved the story and came home smiling. She was only in the door when her son rang to say he had lost his wallet that day: the money they had given him was in it.
And so it goes on
On Tuesday the ignition in the car let them down; on Wednesday the car had to he fixed and Ann’s mother was taken ill. And so the week went on.
On Thursday a little boy who lives down the road stuck some wire into the lock on the boot of the car, so it was impossible to stow all the supermarket shopping.
Friday was like the other days: it rained all the time. The bus came too near the path and splashed dirty water over Ann’s new coat. While all of these things were happening, the deeper problems of life remained to be dealt with. Relationships still needed care, and someone close to Ann was going through a bout of bad depression. The hunger-filled eyes of refugee children stared out at her from the TV, and the question floated around in her mind: “Would the money, now lost, which we gave our son, have been better used if we had sent it off to help these starving children?”
When Saturday came, Ann got the lock on the car fixed. Later that morning they had two callers to the door asking for money; she gave what she could.
Not another knock!
In the early afternoon there was yet another knock. Looking out from an upstairs window she saw a very old man. Her heart sank: “Not another sad story?” she thought. She whispered to her husband not to open the door.
They waited. There was another knock. Her husband looked at her quizzically. “But you always answer the door,” he whispered. Another knock, fainter now; the man was leaving. Husband and wife nodded to each other and he opened the door. The old man turned and asked for their son by name. “He doesn’t live here now,” her husband said, “but perhaps I can help.” “I found his wallet on Monday last,” the old man said, “and I waited until the weather improved to bring it to the address on his student card.”
He came in and sat down, and took a drink of fizzy orange. At eighty-four, he was in good health, and a great reader, though he had had little formal education. He thought that the loss of the library cards which he found in the wallet would be more important to the young man than the money. He held the young man’s photo in his hands for quite a while and remarked: “He’ll be OK.”
God has been busy
When the old man left, Ann and her husband were silent for a while: both had a sense that something mysterious was going on. They went out for a walk together and talked over what had happened. Ann had lived out her week in blind faith: it was one of many similar weeks and she had felt puzzled at times by the lack of joy in her world. She knew she was trying to find God, but sometimes, and for long periods, God seemed to be hiding – or even lost!
Now the old man’s kindness was bringing a first glimmer of light and hope. She began to make connections: if their son had not been as he was he would not have needed the money, therefore he would not have lost it, and so the old man would never have come into their lives. Now the wallet was back; their son was affirmed by the old man, and husband and wife were drawn closer by all that had happened.
Even the old man had been helped: he had gone out of his way to respond when God had nudged him but he had enjoyed meeting the family, because he was a lonely man. Ann felt a sense of mystery pervading the events of the week and she is now finding it easier to say, “God is busy behind the scenes!” Other events of that particular week still don’t make any sense, but there are times when she can say, “I often don’t know why things happen, but it’s all right”.
Her hope can survive chaos because she is catching on to the fact that God really does understand us and can bring good out of the messiness of our lives. She is almost daringly at ease with him, addressing him now as “God of the chaotic and the unfinished!” She also knows that the Messiah called to their house that Saturday.
This article is Chapter 5 of ‘Finding God in all things’, a Messenger Publications by Brian Grogan, S.J.
