Recognizing A Saint

Today I met a real live saint. Her name is Ruth Patterson, Reverend Ruth Patterson to be specific, a peacemaker from Ireland.  She addressed a group of some 500 listeners on the process of peacemaking which she boiled down to acts of mercy and forgiveness. The talk itself was brilliant and most articulate and concluded a question and answer session. And that is where I met her.

Being from Boston I asked her what her experience in Belfast could say that would help those of us who are hurting, angry and scared. What we experienced was just that one day and the week of occupation that followed. But this woman who for over 30 years experienced that kind of violence and pain and fear on a daily basis said this:

"To answer you I would have to take off my shoes. Because this is sacred ground." She went on to talk about how all of those feelings, as well as the guilt and confusion, and anger were all present and were very real - and she would not dare take them away.  Still we are called to a response of mercy. She said she was so sorry for what we have just experienced. And then... And then she asked to be forgiven for presuming to know anything that might help. And that is how you know you are in the presence of a saint. When you approach them for a bit of their wisdom, they simply kneel before you and start washing your feet!

In Whose Eyes

I have been observing the function of focus lately in an attempt to see how focusing on certain things altered the experience of them – in particular how focusing on the divine altered the experience of life.   The great news is that doing that, like focusing on beauty or seeing love in others, has a marvelous effect.  Suddenly the entire world looks sacred and holy.

In addition it was my intent to actively choose this focus – to see if I could constantly focus on the Divine.  Now, while all of us have that part of the brain that concentrates our focus on foreground, relegating all else to background (a function of the RAS or reticular activating system), actively choosing to focus on this or that more intensely engages the RAS and its focusing function.  When suddenly, in the middle of my mental conversation, it hit me how arrogant and ego-centric it was to assume that my choosing made the sacred appear!  It was not my choosing at all but the fact that God, had already chosen me – all of us – and that was what had made it sacred in the first place. 

I cannot pretend for a moment that I am choosing God – God has already, always chosen me.  And there is nothing in my choosing that can alter that, except that I forget and turn away from time to time.  But each time I turn back, there is God waiting, accepting, and welcoming me back, just as I am.  So while I do have a choice (whether to look away or toward God’s light) it is not my choosing that makes it so.  It is that God has – long before you or I ever had this thought – chosen us, in the very act of giving us this life to live. And in God’s “eyes” we are enough; holy and sacred; all we need to be; God’s very creation in 3D.

The thought suddenly relaxed me – like my shoulders dropped about six inches from their tensed up position – as if it was all a huge effort I had to do.  It isn’t.  It is quite easy. Just shut up and accept the gift (I am not good at receiving gifts – I’m much better at giving, I think).  Oh, I am certain I will forget this lesson and turn away, but as it always has been, all I have to do is turn back and remember, effortlessly, and there it is.  I think this is what others have called surrender.