SMALL MIRACLES
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
John O’Donohue
My life was fast. My ministry was fast. I believed that being apostolic and slow did not go well together. I knew I had and wanted to “make stuff” happen, fast. In this current module, I am reminded of my own past journey. As I have time, a friendly space, and awareness on my side, I can look back with candor without losing self-compassion. I was true to what I knew at the time, which means authentic. At the same time, O’Donohue’s poem above probably would have all been gibberish in my fast life.
The invitations O’Donohue outlines above— “take refuge, open up, become inclined to watch, imitate the habit, take time, draw alongside the silence”—resonate deeply within me. They are action, non-action verbs. O’Donohue’s experience and mine, while both unique and different, create a sense of universality of truth, the truth of interconnectedness with everything, including one’s true self. Taking time in solitude, in this sense, is not to shift focus away from engaging the needs of the world, but to add depth and awareness of seeing what is being seen (as opposed to seeing what we want to see), to contribute to the deepest needs of the world.
I experienced many miracles of faith and provisions. However, since my mind is almost always preoccupied with the future, I have not “sucked out all the marrow” of all God’s miracles. I know I have to slow down to remain in the present to count all the blessings. Otherwise, I will always chase after more and bigger, even in terms of God’s prevalent and plentiful miracles. Small miracles, from a smile from a friend to witnessing the rain, the twilight, or the stone, remain elusive when they are, in fact, big miracles God is generously sending our way. God is so big that God comes to us in small, intimate ways.
One of my favorite things to do while in Malaysia was to watch and linger in the slow and free way of the rain. When talking about slow and free, witnessing the first snowflake in Korea last December was a mesmerizing spectacle. I remember the sparkling twilight on the vast horizon over the California and the Bali coast, reminiscing about the colors of the day.
The silent stone exists not for our sake. If it does exist for our sake, it would be for our calmness, as O’Donohue put it. The entire creation simply exists, just as it is, whether we recognize it or not. They are not bothered by our inattentiveness or even humanity’s willful harm and destruction. They are that calm and grounded. I do not and cannot fully know and appreciate where all this musing is headed. What I do know is that I have experientially discerned that slowness, watching, lingering, and calming have helped me in claiming myself and my relationship with God, for the sake of the world.