Till There Was This . . .

So, it is no secret that I am a huge fan of Ignatian Spirituality and especially the concept of "finding God in all things", which to me is simply an awareness that everything we are and have comes from God, so whatever we find in the world in some way can lead us back to God.

About a month ago I got a new CD from one of my favorite singing groups that has roots right here in my beloved Bloomington:  Straight No Chaser.  Among the songs on the CD is the most amazing arrangement of the song "Till There Was You" from the musical The Music Man.   If you aren't familiar with the story, this song is sung by Marian the Librarian when she realizes that she has fallen for Harold Hill.

Only when I heard this particular arrangement, sung by these ten amazing men it wasn't a love song between a woman and a man, but to me it was someone realizing that the entire world looks and sounds different when one becomes aware of God in his or her life.  Everything changes,  colors are brighter, music is sweeter, and somehow the whole world looks so amazing.  There is Love all around,  because God is Love, and those who live in Love live in God, and God in them.

Listen to the lyrics, and put yourself in the place of the singer.  How has your world changed because you are aware that God is a part of all that you do?





Pax

Dear God,

When Alex Renton an atheist came home to find his daughter had written this letter:

rather than shrug it off he handled it this way:  

This is the text of the letter from a most surprising source:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan  (Archbishop of Canterbury)

Mother Dolores does it again . . .

Just yesterday, my daughters and I watched the wonderful old movie Where the Boys Are, staring among the young cast the radiant Dolores Hart.

It gave me a chance to tell my daughters the story of how in 1963 at the height of her career in Hollywood, Miss Hart left it all behind to join a cloistered Benedictine Monastery in Connecticut.  She chose a higher calling.  The code of the Catholic mother is to never let a vocations lesson slip by.

Today I read another story about Mother Dolores.  Again she is using her life experience to teach us all a valuable lesson;  this time about finding God through pain and disability.  One of my favorite quotes from the article is:

 You have to become dependent on the gift of human beings, and you discover that God is an incarnate reality. In the beginning, God was always a pie-in-the-sky reality. Now I had to realize that Jesus was there through the people who were assisting me, caring for me and doing the things that were bringing me through. That metanoia had to take place in me to submit to the gift of others.”


We must learn to find God in other people.  This is the gift Mother Dolores got from her illness.  Maybe through her some of us won't have to be ill to receive this gift. 


Pax