A SOUL WAS ONCE HEARD TO SAY:
REFLECTIONS ON A RELATIONSHIP
There is a story told of St. Augustine who, while walking along the sea shore, spotted a child running back and forth carrying a sea shell full of water from the edge of the sea to a hole in the sand on the beach. After a time Augustine asked the child what it was that he was doing. The child replied that he was going to empty the sea into the hole in the sandy beach. St. Augustine smiled and said, “My child, you can’t possibly put the immensity of the sea into that little hole.” The child smiled and said, “Neither can you come to understand the Trinity.”--Source Unknown We celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity to honor our God, three persons in one, not because we hope to understand the Trinity, but rather that we might, in the deepest part of our being, understand ourselves.
Part of our difficulty in adjusting our images of God is that we must simultaneously adjust our self-image and the way we see other people. Whether we like it or not, our images of God, self and others are all tied together. Whatever lenses a person uses to see Godare the same lenses for seeing oneself and others. --Pat McCloskey, O.F.M. "Are Our Images of God Growing?" Catholic Update
When the British Poet Francis Thompson imaged God as “The Hound of Heaven,” his image said as much about himself as his God, whom he “fled down the arches of the years.”
When Patricia Holmes Parker images “Grandma God,” it speaks to her lived experience of a gentle and tender Grandmother who was of necessity a stronger and more present image than her invalid father.When Elie Wiesel, in his powerful memoir Night, imaged God as the boy hanging from the gallows of a Nazi concentration camp, it was the horror of his lived experience that shaped that image.In the same way each of the following souls speaks of one side of a relationship, from which we can deduce their image of God.(A variety of individuals recited the following monologues from “off stage” with amplification.
A brief meditative pause was made after each one..)
A SOUL WAS ONCE HEARD TO SAY…
“What a magnificent view! The setting sun glistening on the water creates a host of shimmering gems that seem to flow from their invisible source to me and back again. The rolling hills silhouetted against the reddish sky! Breathtaking! Soon the setting sun will reveal thousands of stars seemingly paving a way to galaxies beyond human imagining. And all of this for me? I hardly deserve such treatment, yet I relish in it.”A SOUL WAS ONCE HEARD TO SAY…
“Why me? This isn’t fair. What did I do wrong? Why am I being punished? I was dealt this; I didn’t ask for it. Hemingway had it right; ‘Life is like a bull fight—the bull’s put in the ring and never told the rules!’ What can I do? The cards are stacked against me. This is too much to bear. What’s the point? Why me?”A SOUL WAS ONCE HEARD TO SAY….
“What a wonderful feeling! It’s like I have been given everything I ever hoped for. I feel whole, complete. It seems incomprehensible that anyone could be so happy, so much at peace. I feel so blessed, so treasured, so loved.”A SOUL WAS ONCE HEARD TO SAY…
“Boy, that was a dumb thing to do! I don’t know what made me do that, again. It was thoughtless, unkind, insensitive. I can be so selfish at times. I always have to have things my way. I keep putting myself first, to the exclusion of others, even family and friends.”A SOUL WAS ONCE HEARD TO SAY…
“I feel so alone. No one seems to care about me or the way I feel. I‘m ignored, dismissed as insignificant. There is no support or encouragement. I’m out here on limb completely abandoned. So alone.”What we celebrate today is not just the majesty and ineffability of God, but also the relationship which flows from our concrete and finite images of God. If the image each one of us has of God is colored by our lived experience, what would your soul be heard to say today….?