DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION

The scariest drive I’ve ever had! I was in a kind of ‘on and off’ conversation with the fellow behind the wheel. And then I became aware that I had lost all connection with him. He was talking to someone else on his cell phone. Here was I wondering how he could give his attention at one and the same time to what was actually happening on the road, to what might easily happen, as well as conversing with someone in the electronic ‘out there,’ when, to my horror, his second cell phone chimed in. Wonder of wonders, he was able to manage to hold two conversations while driving his vehicle at a considerable pace. I was filled with awe since I’m hard pushed to manage more than one thing at a time, and mostly not very successfully. I was also filled with fear. True enough, I was strapped in with the required safety belt, but, in the circumstances, what kind of security was that?

For my part, I’ve needed my full, undivided, concentration to motor along our twisting narrow mountainous roads in Grenada, with a sheer drop to the sea on one side, and a steep rock-face on the other. Nowhere to go but over - and down, down, down or into - and smash, full-stop. The on-coming traffic takes possession of the road, of both sides as well as the middle as it belts along straight at you. Dexterity of the highest order, supreme concentration and very actual grace alone ensure the possibility of survival.

And now my imagination chokes. By contrast with all these limitations of mine (and of others, did they but realize it) at one and the same time our Heavenly Father with infinite wisdom and love is receiving and answering literally millions of prayers uttered in dozens of languages and concerning a myriad of different intentions. Together with this he is loaded with the detailed exercise of governance over the whole of creation.

I am overwhelmed as I think of the mind and the will that is God. To the skeptic it’s all very simple. No problem! ‘If you can’t understand it, if you can’t prove it, just be reasonable. Don’t accept it.’ We who believe can’t go this way. When we profess that Almighty God is mystery we’re talking not only about his power. We’re talking about his capacity to give his undivided, specific, attention to the minutiae of everything, absolutely everything.

MY WAY is definitely not GOD’S Way. Admitting this is the beginning of wisdom, perhaps the totality as well.

Peter Clarke O.P

For the next seven weeks Isidore will post a series of pictures, which he has painted, together with his reflections. Your comments on this experiment would be especially welcome. Do see what you make of the pictures before you read his commentary.