Re: God's Will

[barbara wolf <lupa@biddeford.com>]

Apropos how we might discern God's will:

With advancing years have come a couple of observations.  One is that (with
some startlingly invasive exceptions) I am able to perceive the loving power
of God better in retrospect.  I don't think very many people are capable of
analyzing the moment. We don't have all the necessary info, for one thing;
and for another, our personal hopes, assumptions, habits of thought, and
secret memories interfere with our ability to accept what defies our grasp.
But as I look back over all the puzzling (and often painful) events in my
life--the very ones that, at the time, I thought impossible to understand--I
find that God's loving power was very much present, thank you, and that I am
who I am because of those events.  I've begun to see the past as being like
a tapestry with all kinds of threads (some knotted and intricately twisted).
But there seems also to be a pattern that continues to be woven.  Awareness
of the pattern helps immeasurably in the present moment, whatever is going on.

For today--and each today--I've come to regard "God's will" in a very simple
(who knows? maybe simply senile?)fashion.  God's will *for me*, which is all
I really need to concern myself with, is whatever is on my plate today.  I'm
not capable of knowing what is on someone else's plate.  The grief and anger
that we all are subject to, when we are faced with pain and loss, these do
show up on my plate often enough; and when they do, I try to make sense of
them.  Sometimes I can, as when my dearly loved son-in-law died, and when
(after a little time) I found I could thank God for his life and for letting
us know him--*and mean it with all my heart*.  But sometimes I can't.  And
in those times, I know that I have to concentrate not on trying to make
sense of things but to discern what God has put on *my* plate to do today.

Sorry for all the metaphoric flights, and sorry if this is not entirely
germane to the original post.
Barbara Wolf

But we've got to be careful not to reduce people by cramming them in the
limits of our understanding, haven't we?
                                                        Reginald Hill