Is God there after all?
Some are convinced that they have seen God. Others are angry that he was nowhere when they needed him most. Others are convinced that he simply is not there. Those convinced that they have seen God will often recount marvellous and miraculous experiences. Life worked in their favour. The angry ones are often those who, in spite their trust in God, have felt abandoned and betrayed by him when they needed him most  in the pains and hurts of life. Others have simply given up on the idea he might be there. Without him, life can not only be explained and understood, it can also be lived in a relatively fulfilling way. They face life responsibly as grown-ups. God is irrelevant. The first group of people are like those watching a magnificent sunset. They can look at the sun straight in the eye. Its beauty makes life good and wholesome. God is good and beautiful. The second group of people are the angry, disappointed ones. No romantic, beautiful sunsets for them. They found themselves in the eye of a stormy hell of life  the pain, betrayals and evil that have caused havoc in their lives. For them, the good, loving God is a big lie, because life itself is a big lie. The sun is no inspiring spectacle but just a churning ball of fire destroying everything in its path. The third group of people have given up on God as simply irrelevant. Courageously or despairingly, they struggle to find some meaning in life, relying on reason or intelligence to somehow explain, understand or just cope with life. They cannot stop the glorious sun from setting, the dark, stormy nights from hitting them, or the light of reason from hitting the blank, black wall of their unanswered questions. God is like the midday sun. You cannot look it in the eye. It will blind you. Yet its radiance enables us to see our own beauty amid all shadows of evil. To see the midday sun, you must not look at it. You must simply allow its light to reveal the beauty around and within you  oceans and mountains, forests and flowers and, most of all, amazing and beautiful faces of people who cry and who smile, who speak and who listen, who give and receive, who live and who die to love and give life to fellow humans. If you seek God up in the bright heavens, like a blinded person you will surely conclude there is no God. Next time you want to see God, stop looking at the heavens. Stop searching for the sun. To seek and find God, just look in the eyes of your neighbours and make yours their joys and their pains. You will discover that God is not somewhere up there, but that your neighbour is another bright ray of Gods radiant beauty shining in your own heart. You will see that beyond every joy there is a gift, beyond every pain there is love and beyond reason there is meaning. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God. pchetcuti@gmail.com  Fr Paul Chetcuti, member, Society of Jesus