Reinventing Ourselves

Did your life turn out the way you thought it would when you were a teenager—or, heck, at the beginning of this year? No? Well, welcome to the kingdom of heaven!

As John Shea notes, “The kingdom of heaven entails an ongoing process of putting together the new and old, of finding, selling, buying our lives, of reinventing ourselves in the light of the ongoing revelation of God.” How can we expect our lives to follow a prescribed path when God—the God who makes all things new—is constantly revealing new things to us?

Today is the four-year anniversary of my entrance to Mount St. Scholastica as a postulant. I never imagined I would be joining a Benedictine community in my mid 50s, but to my astonishment, that is the calling that was revealed to me. It has opened a rich new world of prayer, relationships, and insight that I never would have experienced had I stayed on my former path.

We need to be alert to what God may wish to reveal to us. For me, writing poetry is one way to maintain that alertness. I do not so much write to produce a poem but to be aware of what is going on around and within me. As Kim Addonizio has said, “Poetry is not a means to an end, but a continuing engagement with being alive.” Similarly, the kingdom of heaven is not a destination but a way of living that opens us to an ever-expanding circle of God’s love and wisdom.

We needn’t worry if our plans change or fall apart. When we accept the invitation to flow with life’s mystery, we can relax, because the One at the helm knows us intimately and desires fullness of life for us.