Awakenings

by Father Thomas Keating

Events in Jesus' Ministry

Chapter 2

Living As If God Were Absent

When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, "This is a deserted place and it is already very late. Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat." He said to them in reply "Give them some food yourselves." But they said to him, "Are we to buy two hundred days' wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?" He asked them, "How many loaves do you have? Go and see." And when they had found out they said, "Five loaves and two fish." So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties. Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to [his] disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish. Those who ate [of the loaves] were five thousand men. 
(Mark 6:34-44)

    This occasion is one of those impossible situations that arise regularly in the course of ordinary life. It was late in a long day; a crowd of people far from home and nothing to eat. The disciples, seeing the situation, had a solution. They went to Jesus and said, "It's time to send the people away so they can find food and shelter at some crossroads." They did not see God in the situation; they saw just the human predicament. Jesus, of course, not only saw the human situation; he also saw the presence of God in it. The perspective is quite different when, like Jesus, one is sensitive to what God is trying to do.

    Saint Teresa of Avila says that every difficulty in prayer comes from one fatal flaw, that of praying as if God were absent. Our spiritual journey as a whole has the same fatal flaw: seeking God as if he were absent. Everyday life has the same flaw: we live as if God were absent. One of the favorite ways of living thus, is to keep putting off our search for God, our prayer, or our conversion until after our immediate problems have been cleared up. We survive difficult situations in the vain hope that someday, somewhere, we will have the time to do spiritual reading, to get good direction, to do penance, to become a saint, or to live in a monastery. If you have made a retreat, you know that spiritual practice goes better in solitude. You may say to yourself, "Wouldn't it be great if I could live in a retreat atmosphere all the time? And since they do this in monasteries, I think I'll apply to the Trappists or the Carmelites."

    This is a favorite temptation of almost everyone on the spiritual journey. We can't see the presence of God right where we are nor in the precise situations in which we find ourselves. On the contrary we think, "If only I had the ideal circumstances for prayer, everything would be fine. The thought of God would always be with me. I would pray all the time like the holy monks and cloistered sisters."

    I'm not sure that monks and cloistered sisters are praying anymore than you are. They have problems too. If they live on a farm, the same temptation arises: "I'll give more time to prayer after the harvest." If they are bookkeepers, "I'll have time to pray after I pay the bills this month."

    Here is the classic temptation by which we postpone living in the presence of God to some future time. Some examples of it: "I will give time to prayer when the children grow up; when my husband gets over his illness; when I no longer have to work so hard; when I can finally deal with personality problems at the office." In other words, "I'll put my mind on the spiritual journey as soon as my immediate problems are over." Our response to life is to put all our energy into surviving the difficulties of the moment believing that only when these are settled will we be able to practice the presence of God. We maintain the illusion that God is not here now; that God is not in this everyday difficulty This human way of judging is a lack of faith. We are like Philip who said to Jesus at the Last Supper, "Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us."

    Jesus' reply was, "Philip, have I been with you all this time and you do not know me? He who sees me has seen the Father." If the ordinary situations of life could speak to us, they would say, "How is it that you don't recognize us? One who sees us sees God." God is present in difficulties and in impossible situations. His presence is there not only ontologically, because his being is everywhere, but also because the divine action is present in every event. Suppose on a certain day we are saying devout aspirations as we drive along the road and suddenly have a flat tire. When we can't find the jack, all our prayers go out the window. We try to thumb people down and nobody stops. Pretty soon we are totally upset. We call for a tow truck. Only when we get home and have the car in the garage, do we start to think of God again. Where was God during that situation? Did he just disintegrate?

    We need to cultivate what Bernadette Roberts calls "everyday God." The X-ray eyes of faith do not wait until everything is ideal or peaceful before relating to God. Faith says, "Well, this is a strange situation, a desperate situation, an impossible situation. What is God saying to me or asking me to do?"

    At the Last Judgment, according to the parable, God's servants will say, "Lord, when were you thirsty or hungry or in prison or naked." And he will reply, "Whenever you did this to the least of my little ones, you did it to me."

    Impossible situations may be due to other people, disease, disaster or just immense inconvenience. How we react is our response to God's presence. Living daily life as if God were absent is the fatal flaw of the spiritual journey. The idea that God is absent is just a thought or feeling. If you can shatter that illusion and disregard the feeling, you have it made. God cannot be absent. Treating him as if he were is an insult. It is like saying to God, "You're not in my life; not, at least, in this situation. I'll pray when I get off this plane; when this lousy sermon is over; when I finally get my divorce; when this painful situation at the office is settled; when the energy that I need to survive this impossible situation is once again available."

    Jesus could see in that crowd of hungry and weary people, in that impossible situation, God inviting him to work a miracle. He was moved only by what he saw the Father doing. His sensitivity to the divine compassion so heightened his perception that in a situation where there was no food he knew the Father would do something to provide it. If he had seen that situation as just one more impossibility and sent everyone home, God's concern for this human need would not have been manifested.

    In daily life the Spirit is speaking in various ways. Christ is present under different disguises. In human tragedy, there is something that the Father wants us to do to bring healing. The contemplative dimension of the Gospel keeps heightening this sensitivity. When one follows the inspiration of the Spirit, results occur that could not possibly have been foreseen. Hence, the need to cultivate God's presence and action in situations that seem impossible to do anything about. The mystery of Christ is at work in everything, however humble or humdrum. Our response can be inspired by the false self or by the Spirit. If it is by the Spirit, the consequences are immense both for ourselves and for others, and perhaps for the whole human family.

This chapter is taken from the book Awakenings by Fr. Thomas Keating. You can obtain a copy from the Bookstore.  See Awakenings