Artists can point us in the right direction. As Richard Rohr says, “Artists do not insist on full understanding before they write a piece of music of start painting. They trust the unconscious….” Just so, we cannot wait until we have a full understanding of God before deciding whether we will invest in this relationship, for God will never be fully knowable. However, we can trust other sources of knowing beyond our mind—the tugging of our heart, the feeling in our gut, the intuition that arises from our unconscious. God speaks to us in those ways, too.
For the most part, we humans prefer predictability to surprises. However, one insight I gained at my BSWR conference is that the vow of fidelity to the monastic way of life (openness to conversion) is a recognition of God’s unpredictability — God always surprises us, shatters our expectations, and surpasses our imaginations. That is one reason humility is required to be in relationship with God; we need to admit that we don’t always know best, that our human limitations restrict fullness of life, and that we need God to lead us beyond our understanding.
One benefit of aging is hindsight, which leads to the prayer, “Thank you, God, for not giving me what I asked for!” Our disappointments, losses, and even times of suffering teach us who we are, what we value, and how to make the best use of our time. Although we may not always be able to sense it, God is with us in our times of both light and darkness, and our surrender through prayer will help us trust in our God of mystery.
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