Finding a State of Trust
By opening yourself to God, you are implicitly praying for everyone past, present, and future. You are embracing the whole of creation. You are accepting all reality, beginning with God and with that part of your own reality of which you may not be generally aware, mainly the spiritual level of your being.
—Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart
We’re creating a new driveway (it’s a long story) to our house. Between the weather and other disturbances, it is taking longer than expected. As you enter you’re at the top of an incline which progressively takes you down into a valley where our house is. From the top vantage point all you can see are trees — a pine grove which runs adjacent to the new road. Temporarily it appears that there is no road, however, if you continue driving straight ahead there is a clearing and certain landmarks appear that weren’t visible earlier— at the top of the incline— and you know that you are on the right path. But first you have to trust that a few feet in front of you exists the road even though for a time you are unable to see it.
That sort of reflects my life’s journey. There were periods of time when I couldn’t see what was happening ahead, engrossed in a future, but if I stayed on the path, everything opened up and became clearer. I think that’s what religious teachers and saints refer to as faith. Being neither a religious teacher or a saint, I’ve had to take their word for it until recently. The ongoing experience of temporarily driving without the clear sight of a road in front of me reminded me of the concept of faith.
And you know what—with all the planning and goal setting we really do not know what is going to happen in the next moment. It’s all a mystery. And just because of that, our best efforts should be to live with an integrity and boldness that expresses a life-affirming, nurturing and gentle spirit acting respectfully toward all people.
It’s a revealing state of affairs and an opportunity for a soul-searching reflection that after all theses centuries we humans are still struggling and only sometimes exert any energy to express respect and love toward ourselves and our neighbors. In that sense our behaviors are also an opportunity to re-energize and re-affirm our role as citizens of the kingdom of God on earth. It is a noble responsibility aligning ourselves with the love, will, and wisdom of the divine.
Like clouds, darkness does pass and with that often comes more clarity than we could have imagined. The necessary road on the path will appear and for sure what we receive will not look anything like that which we had envisioned.
My life has been transformed over the past few years—not without some resistance on my part— especially this past year. The idea of rest, stillness, and just being have played a pivotal role in generating a renewed state of health. And I’m developing a different understanding of the necessity of sabbath; finding comfort in these words of Walter Brueggemann (1933-2025).
Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.
Preserving time for sabbath has been a life-saver for me, especially when its not at the traditional time on Sunday. The evening and mid-week respites disclose a different dimension of reality and are an assurance of hope from the regenerative inner spirit.