Looking for God
“Are you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment, you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied.”―Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World.
One of my many bookcases
In my medical career, I know where to find answers, reading about diseases to solve mysteries of what is going on with my patients. It is only natural that I carry that over to my spiritual life. I have filled bookshelves and bookshelves and bookshelves as I seek the truth of peace and connection to God. The answer seems right there on the next page. I go to the book’s last page; alas, it must be hiding, for I cannot find it. So, I eagerly purchase the author’s next book, again hoping to connect to the truth that seems so close. I go to their next workshop or conference. I find another author there, and I repeat the same cycle. I go to day retreats, silent retreats, week-long gatherings, and pilgrimages, knowing that answers will be at that place or that time.
Nouwen says from his experience that this compulsive journey only leads to spiritual exhaustion, leading to spiritual death.
I return to my medical practice and remember that I often learned the answers from my patients if I listened to them. My patients and their medical findings, where it hurt, how long they were in pain, and how it felt to touch. That is where answers come in the present moment.
In our spiritual life, C.S. Lewis tells us we meet God in the present moment. This means that God’s appearance in the present moment is not in the busyness of seeking God in a new place or with a new mentor. The present moment is always right in front of us. It is in the air we breathe. It is with each person we meet in our routine daily life. It is in the tree outside our window or the birds who come to feed. God is in all these other places and people, and right in front of us wherever we are. We only have to stop our busyness long enough to say, “Hello, I love you, too, and thank you.”
But we cannot hold onto the love and peace that living in the present brings. Instead, this love must be shared with each breath, person, or part of nature we encounter. There it multiplies and changes not only us, but sometimes the world.
Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/