March 2025
The Meaning of It All
By Mary Fisher, FMSA
Today our country and our world are experiencing division and turmoil in our thoughts and in our actions. These movements of division and turmoil are often presented in ‘winds’ of force and demand.
We find these ‘winds’ in all aspects of daily living – government, schools, churches, climate change, law and order and in peoples’ choices. These ‘winds’ do not just happen. God’s hand is somewhere leading you and I to something ‘new.’ As you encounter these disturbances the questions, we can ask ourselves are:
Do I have an experience of hope as I look into the future?
What do I hope for?
What do I dream for myself and others?
Is my hope/dream for a few or is it for a larger number of people?
In responding to these questions and others you may have; I am inviting you to become aware of the world’s journey to God and your personal journey towards God.
For those of us who have lived a few decades, we are aware that the journey in life is not always ‘peaches and cream.’ There are many bends in the road; there are crossroads, where a decision has to be made for a future direction; the road itself is not always smooth and often contains rocks with sharp edges etc. etc. With all the turmoil around us I believe God is inviting us to become awake, where we each become open to hear and see God’s invitation now.
The question to ask is ‘What am I living?’
Let me share a couple examples. The first is from my own experience. There are times I am on ‘automatic pilot!’ I remember getting out of bed and the next conscious act is making a cup of coffee in the kitchen. I do not remember how I got to the kitchen. I am exaggerating a bit but not much. This experience of ‘automatic pilot’, I believe, is in all of our lives. We drift through the day……AND……. we come to the end of the day recognizing that we did not live the day consciously.
Years ago, an incident occurred that spoke loudly to me. (Probably because I needed to hear it.) I was giving a course in Uganda when a member, from my own Congregation, came to me saying, “Mary I realize I have been doing jobs all my life.” Recognizing her life was lived from responsibility to responsibility she changed her focus.
Today she is resting in ‘God’s hands’ as a consequence of her holy life.
A good question to ask yourself at any time if we are taking our Spiritual Journey seriously is:
Where was God for me today?
Where was God in what I was hearing on TV?
Where is God in this new pronouncement?
Is what I am reading/hearing bringing New Life?
Is this action from God?
I am in the eighth decade of my life. The longer I live the more I recognize the power of God found in the concept of journey and the recognition of mystery in one’s life. Unfortunately, life does not always bring clarity. For this reason, we need to recognize the gift found in these two dynamics – journey and mystery. These two aspects are part of our spiritual journey towards God. (We know and we do not know at the same time.)
Often our thinking is that there is only one journey, the one from birth to death. Yes, this is true but there are many different journeys, not just the one from birth to death and the events in-between. During this year I will be ‘unwrapping’ the power and invitation for us all to another awareness. There are many different journeys. Some of these journeys are as follows:
The journey from one event to the next
The journey of our emotions as we try to find balance
The journey of our 5 senses, whereby they wake-up and become alive
The journey of our education and its fruits
The journey of our work experience and what it taught
The journey of family and the intricate patterns that arise
The journey of health and the wisdom it teaches
The journey of God’s invitations and my responses
Whatever journey you are living there is always an encounter with the unknown. In becoming fully alive we are called to embrace not-knowing as an invitation. For us to trust the darkness in not-knowing we need to learn to grow in trusting what is before us.
Slowly we come to realize, that with God’s help, the goodness of God is
found in both the known and the unknown.