'Many are the rainbows, the sunbursts, the gentle breezes—and the hailstorms—we are liable to meet before, by the grace of God, we shall be able to tumble into our graves with the confidence of tired children into their places of peaceful slumber.’ Blessed Solanus Casey
I was in the cemetery the other day. It was my mother-in-law’s birthday, she would have been 101 and all her children gathered to pray the Rosary for her on her birthday.
As the car pulled up the GPS said “you have arrived at your destination”. A chilling reminder, but it had a point. After the prayers I had a wander and noticed how many of the graves contained occupants younger than me; some teenagers, others in their prime. What a blessing it is to have a good innings, a length of years.
There is really only one thing we can offer to God as we go along; and we certainly owe it to Him. And that is gratitude. To thank Him for all He has and continues to give us. Life is a gift, each moment, each breath of air, every drop of water, every meal, gifts of faith, mercy and forgiveness, every person we know, all the joys of life. We miss a lot of it by occupying our minds with what we don’t have, have lost or what is not quite as we would like it to be and in doing so, rob Him of the full measure of the gratitude we owe and rob ourselves of much of the joy of life. A grateful heart is a free heart.
I love the quote above; imagine at the end of days, to “tumble into our graves with the confidence of tired children into their places of peaceful slumber” If we live in gratitude I think we will be able to live and die like that.
‘All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.’
We know something is wrong, or missing, in ourselves and the world:- most men will feel the angst and push it down in duty, discipline and conformity and perhaps dull the pain of it with a few beers at the weekend or some other leaning post and stoically carry on. Even with a Christian foundation most feel a bit lost with all the longings of desire fighting to get out. We were made for Eden, for bliss, for eternity and the heart remembers the original design.
What does it look like for the few who make the leap to try to find the destiny we believe is calling us, to a life worth living? It’s dangerous, and it doesn’t always go according to (our) plan.
I came across a video about a prolific sailor and author from the US, Webb Chiles, which told of his life on the world’s oceans; he was the first US citizen to go solo around Cape Horn where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans clash rather violently, putting the best of sailors to the test; he also chalked up many circumnavigations. Out on the fringes of life there will usually be close calls and life threatening situations which will test the mettle and bring them to the end of themselves and I asked him if there were any memorable events like that. Another video he shared showed a couple of examples. There was something in the stories; some small details that reminded me of something. To some they would be barely noticeable, put down to chance or luck but to me; I recognized the Modus Operandi… a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a much deeper reality.
One of the stories described how during a voyage, some 300 miles from shore, he hit something in the water which caused the boat to summersault and threw him out. Afterwards the boat was swamped, still afloat but not sailable; just drifting with the hopeful expectation of reaching land eventually. He rationed his water to a few sips per day and a small amount to eat. And then a timely arrival; a coconut, with its life-giving contents still secure inside, floated casually by the boat. Webb swam to fetch it. It would enable him to survive for another week and so he made it to land alive. Lived to sail another day!
Years ago I read the account of the Voyage of the James Caird (a lifeboat) from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Frank Worsley navigated the small open boat through hurricane conditions 800 miles to find a fly speck of an island using celestial navigation, and saved the lives of his comrades just as surely as Shackleton’s legendary leadership did.
But the more impressive piece of navigation, to say nothing of timing, must be the Voyage of that Coconut. First it had to fall off the tree and land, softly, in the sand without breakage. Then roll gently to the water’s edge, picked up by the tide, and begin its seaward journey. And then, without rudder or sail, chart or GPS it crossed how many miles we don’t know, moved by wind and wave for a high precision rendezvous with an even smaller target in the ocean. As a scientist I can say that the mathematical probability of this confluence of events is approaching zero. Nature is anything but Precise; the Supernatural on the other hand is this precise.
God honours our efforts, our work and our achievements and only steps in when we are at the end of ourselves if He has purpose. We are trained through adversity, not spared any trial or difficulty but with one aim in mind; union or reunion with Him. We are made for fellowship with Him. He is not a remote being or a mathematical enigma for us to solve but the Father’s sincere love for us manifest in His pursuit of us across the sea roads or mountain tops of the world. The revelation is the invitation or trail head of another journey, another voyage of sorts into the unknown and uncharted waters of the spiritual life and that is where, for me, the real adventure began more than 30 years ago after an intervention on land with a similarly ludicrous probability, but that’s a story for another day!
