Issue nº 28
In search of signs | Stories
- Three reflections on life
We may think at times that the only
thing life offers us tomorrow, is to repeat everything we did today.
But if we pay close attention, we will see that no two days are
alike.
Each morning brings a hidden blessing;
a blessing which is unique to that day, and which cannot be kept
or re-used. If we do not use this miracle today, it will be lost.
This miracle is in the small things
of daily life; we must live in the understanding that at every moment
there is a way out of each problem, the way of finding that which
is missing, the right clue to the decision which must be taken in
order to change our entire future.
But how to find the courage for this?
As I see it, God speaks to us through signs. It is an individual
language which requires faith and discipline in order to be fully
absorbed.
For example, Saint Augustine was converted
in this way. For years he sought - in various philosophical schools
- an answer to the meaning of life, until one afternoon, in the
garden of his house in Milan, as he reflected on the failure of
his search, he heard a child in the street: "Take up and read!
Take up and read!"
Although he had always been governed
by logic, he decided - in an impulse - to open the first book which
came to hand. It was the Bible, and he read part of St. Paul which
contained the answers he sought. From then on, Augustine's logic
made way for faith to take part in his life, and he went on to become
one of the Church's greatest theologians.
The monks of the desert used to say
it was important to allow angels to act. Because of this, they occasionally
did absurd things - such as talk to flowers or laugh without a reason.
The alchemists followed the "signs of God"; clues which
often made no sense, but which always lead somewhere.
"Modern man tried to eliminate
life's uncertainties and doubts. And in doing so he left his soul
dying of hunger; the soul feeds off mysteries" - says the dean
of Saint Francis Cathedral.
There is a meditation exercise which
consists of adding - generally for ten minutes a day - the reasons
for each of our actions. For example: "I now read the newspaper
to keep myself informed. I now think of such-and-such a person,
because the subject I read about lead me to do so. I walked to the
door, because I am going out". And so forth.
Buddha called this "conscious
attention". When we see ourselves repeating our ordinary routine,
we realize how much wealth surrounds our life. We understand each
step, each attitude. We discover important things, and useless thoughts.
At the end of a week - discipline
is always fundamental - we are more conscious of our faults and
distractions, but we also understand that, at times, there was no
reason to act the way we did, that we followed our impulses, our
intuition; and now we begin to understand this silent language which
God uses in order to show us the true path. Call it intuition, signs,
instinct, coincidence, any name will do - what matters is that through
"conscious attention" we realize that we are often guided
to the right decision.
And this makes us stronger and more
confident.