My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude
This sky light in the cathedral’s east lobby matches a similar circular pathway which rewraps around a massive, circular flower room (refrigerated year round) with art lights for flower arrangement production at a dozen stations. The sky light makes the room bright ands cheerful with Denver’s 300 days of sunshine each year. The skylight has long been an icon to me for the reality for which it seems to be a metaphor. When the pathway on which our feet are trading seems obscured by the pain of life, we can always just look up and search for the light-source. God is never not involved.
And of course, that is part of the problem is it not? God is always and only omniscient or impotent. Go is implicated in all the bad things which happen to us unless we become Deists and choose to believe that God is distant and knows nothing about the details of life on earth.
Wanting to please God as a daily and even hourly disposition is the best way to be sure that we are living our best possible life. And though this desire will often take up to strange places and into foreign territory (internally and externally) we still can know that light and God exists beyond the clouds even when there are clouds.
We may not be able to see the road ahead of us, but we can usually make out the source of light and that is sometimes enough to take the next step. Perhaps only one. But one may be enough to occupy our next moment which is the only moment of any importance. Past moments are done and future ones have many possible outcomes. Taking this one next step and knowing that there is light can sometimes be enough.
