God in disguise

Years ago, when she was giving a talk on how tragedy has shaped her life, the wise and quite wonderful teacher, Paula D’Arcy, said somewhat spontaneously, “God comes to you disguised as your life.” That line for me is a deep well from which I have drawn meaning and healing time and time again. It is a wisdom saying that offers something different every time I hold it up next to my own life. Paula did not mean that God causes misfortune or that God has some grand plan that includes the untimely death of children and other abhorrent tragedies just so He can invade our lives. She means something much bigger and more mysterious. When tragedy happens to me it is also happening to God who is the ground of my being. God is infinitely entangled in and as the light and healing that come to envelope my wounds, my pain, and my grief. Paula once said that she wouldn’t want to get rid of even her most painful wounds because the wounds were the portal through which she experienced God coming to her disguised as her own life.

Now as much as I find this line helpful it is decidedly not the sort of thing you should say to someone who is in the throes of suffering. The only thing to say to someone who is actively suffering is this, “I am so sorry. My heart breaks for you, and I love you. How can I be helpful?” Anything else risks being cruel and easily taken in the wrong way. For most of us it is only after the acute waves of pain have passed that we can look back to see that God was with us through it all, disguised as our own lives. I have been thinking about it like this lately - we are invited to participate in the being of God through our own incarnation. The divine spark is animating me to life moment to moment. I can open my eyes, look deeply for God everywhere, and join in the dance, or I can shut my eyes tight and hope this is all over soon. I am increasingly convinced that we live in a God-saturated world, so I open my eyes and look for God in disguise.