What happened?

The question goes "What happened?" and the the reply "God alone knows!"

What happened this last week? In fact what happened since Christmas? And 2007? Where did that year go? I feel time has disappeared.

Ignatian spirituality has a number of key elements. One the use of imagination especially in reflecting about the Gospel stories. Another is the examen. It is simply to pause and be aware of where God has been active in your or my life. It can be for the last few minutes, hours, day, days. week, months, or years. It is not just self-awareness rather heightening awareness of a life lived together, forever in the presence of God. We tend to sing worship songs in excess about this and fail in any effort of will to live it out. Life has been too hectic or full over recent months and this last week has been forced pause. Sometimes sickness is the only thing to force a pause . For some I know it has been unbelievably dramatic and the ground removed from beneath their feet. For a small family back home on another continent there can seem no purpose or reason, and I'm sure there is the potential to see only absence not presence.

I heard last night that Mel passed away leaving a daughter and husband. Working with young people in my neighbourhood, I knew her as a little sister of her older teenage sibling Sarah. I have many endearing memories of her watching her grow up: her matter of fact innocent way of talking, her wide-eyedness at the world around her, a gentleness that called to be protected, a real spark for life and living. There is no making sense of it all and perhaps there should be no seeking for reason only recognizing the sadness, accepting the darkness and looking for glimmers of hope for another fire.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ... Jesus wept. John 11:33, 35