Contemplation inspired by Mary’s words
Contemplation inspired by Mary’s words
I just finished reading Mary’s article on the topics of “Who’s God?” and “Where does God come from?”. This is not the first time I read the article but it
still left me with a lot of ponder about. Last month I read “Dinner with a perfect stranger” written by David Gregory. The author gave an analogy, through the words of Jesus Christ, of how high a level God is compared to humans. If God is at the top of the CN tower in Toronto, (if I’m not mistaken) then humans are
either at the ground level or for the pre-eminent few, a few meters above ground
. This analogy coincides with what Mary wrote, on how God is not directly understandable by us finite beings. In Gregory’s book the stranger was Jesus Christ Himself, and He answers some of life’s most difficult questions over the course
of a gourmet dinner with the main character in the book, it was a refreshing and
fascinating read.
I also like Mary’s narration of how we should not push the river of life and should let things run their courses and let life unfold in its natural way. Since
we cannot directly approach God in the same fashion we cannot observe the sun with our bare eyes, God is so considerate and with immense loving care that He sends great World Teachers, when the time is right, to guide us through our development and evolvement. The real misery of humans lies in the fact that the teachings of God will not be learned and accepted without great sacrifices of the World Teachers. I often burst into tears as I read the New Testament and watched “
Passion of the Christ.” It took great sufferings, severe agony, deep wounds and the physical death of Jesus for humans to realize the love of God, and the passion of Christ.
Another thing that struck a chord deep inside my heart is the wisdom to ask only
of, and to accept and understand God’s first will. As Mary put it, “a tragedy
may be a blessing in disguise”. We need to have faith that everything happens
for a good reason in life. A tragedy may be life’s way or God’s way of teaching a hard lesson and sometimes the best thing we could do is to face it courageously and live through it with faith and dignity. If we could learn the hard lesson and learn to accept the tragedy then may be all our sufferings would not be endured in vain, and God’s first will would be served. I like Mary’s idea of seeing this life as a soul-school. We’re here to learn the many aspects of becoming a righteous being and perhaps pain and sufferings are just part and parcel of
this life curriculum. We’re put here to learn, to experience, to savor the lessons of life and the process, although it may appear difficult and lengthy at times, will prepare us to be a qualified member in eternity. For this reason we should not waste our chances and should try our best to learn and possess all the good virtues of humans. I also like what Harold Kushner says in “When bad things
happen to good people”, that God loves the world and only wants what’s best for us, but there are still pockets of chaos in the universe that are even beyond
the power of an omnipotent God. When calamity strikes, it’s not God’s act, and God’s heart aches when He sees us suffer, but there are still things that happen at random, totally against God’s will and beyond God’s power. At the moment of grief and sorrow, let’s be appeased by the knowledge that God’s sharing our pain and is always with us. Instead of blaming God for what had happened, we
should pray to God for the strength to overcome the pain and rise to the occasion. Bearing in mind that this life is transient and all sufferings may be fierce
but short lived, and the best is yet to come, can have very soothing effect. I remember what Rick Warren says in his “The purpose driven life”, that paradise
is wonderful beyond all human comprehension. The beauty and wonders of this world are only mirrored images of heaven. The human language is too limited to describe what heaven is like, and the finite humans are not capable of comprehending
what lies beyond, the same way ants can not be made to understand the complexity
of a circuit board. To a finite being like the human race, the unknown is inevitably infinite. Pray not for what you want, but for the knowledge of what God wants of you in this finite gift of life, is a wise and righteous approach we should all take.
"The rain falls on the just and on the unjust. God showers His mercy on all of us. God knows the end in the beginning.” The above phrase resonates deeply with
me. When a veterinarian injects medicine into a wounded grizzly bear, the bear may think of this as a hostile act because it does not know better, that the vetwas only trying to cure its wounds. We’re in God’s hand the same way that the bear is in the veterinarian’s hand. We need to foster the faith in a loving
God, believing that God knows what’s best for us, and always remain thankful of
God’s boundless love. When I was still a toddler, I learned to trust that my father would always protect me from harms, provide me with food and shelter, and
would always be there to comfort me and guide me through the winding path. When
I grew into adulthood, and found my faith, I am always grateful that God, my heavenly father, will always provide food for my spirit, answer to my prayers, guide me through the winding path of life, and show me the way to eternity. “Every
soul moves closer to God in the end.” Knowing that we only walk this world for
a limited time and our mandate is to learn the virtues and prepare ourselves to
be a better being when our soul leaves this world and return to God’s kingdom,
we can draft out our life plan accordingly, and take small and many happy steps
, to carry out God’s love, and guide our spirit to be closer to God, in this life and in eternity.
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