September 28: Good Humour, So It Was, God-ness

...And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled with each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly.  For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day.  And so it was!  God love it, so it was!

Yes, I've used this passage before, but I was thinking about my attitude this morning, and I thought of Dickens' little description of the Ghost of Christmas Present shedding happiness and peace upon the London multitudes.  I wish I had a little of the Ghost's torch to sprinkle around some days.

Earlier this week, I was speaking with a friend about prayer life.  My friend said that he experiences something really frustrating on a constant basis.  He says his nightly prayers, does his devotions, and goes to bed feeling very close to God.  When he wakes up in the morning, however, he can't find God.  It's as if the God who was his best friend the night before has packed up His suitcase and left.  He said he spends a good portion of each day searching for God and feeling a little abandoned.

I understand my friend's experience.  He's speaking to a situation almost every thinking/praying person goes through.  We all want to be close to God, sense God working in our lives.  Every once in a while, we achieve that closeness, that sense of God's presence.  For the most part, however, we wander around, searching for inspiration and enlightenment.  That's my description of the plight of modern humanity.  We are seekers of light.  Whether a person is living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or in Kabul, Afghanistan, that person wants to feel respected, loved, and at peace.

This morning, there was a lot of conflict in my house.  My wife was sick.  My daughter was tired.  My son was acting like a four-year-old.  (He's four years old.  He's allowed to do that.)  It wasn't a good scene.  They were all whining and yelling at each other.  While I was speaking to my daughter on the phone, my son walked up and kicked her in the leg.  That's the kind of morning it was.  My son wanted to play with my daughter's iPod.  My daughter wanted my son to leave her alone.  My wife wanted to drink NyQuil and go back to bed.  They all had their own agendas concerning the morning, and those agendas did not fit together.  There wasn't a whole lot of God-ness being passed around.

I've been struggling to find God-ness in my life recently.  I understand my friend's dilemma of feeling distant in prayer and spirit.  I want peace and stillness in my days, but I end up focusing on stupid, petty insults or injuries or situations.  The current pebble in my shoe is my daughter's dance classes.  My daughter has a friend who she's been dancing with since they were in kindergarten.  My daughter's friend seems to be advancing and getting all the attention from the dance instructor.  It irritates me.  It doesn't irritate my daughter.  I, on the other hand, can't even look at my daughter's friend without getting a little angry.

That's one of the things that's interfering with my ability to feel God-ness in my life at the moment.  My coworker is on maternity leave in the medical office, leaving me to do all the work for the next three months.  I'm not feeling a whole lot of God-ness at work, either.

I need to listen to some Christmas music or take a stroll down a London street with the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Or maybe, Saint Marty simply needs to sit down, relax a little, and let the God-ness that's all around him, all the time, sink in.

Every person wants God-ness in the world