Friday 18 June 2010

I wonder what you do to while away the time when you are on a long journey? When I was little I was a terrible traveller, and my parents invented all sorts of things to keep me occupied - from counting red vans or white estate cars, through to singing a repertoire of various songs. Now that I'm all grown up I frequently do the latter, though try not to if other people are in the car - for obvious reasons.

On this particular occasion I was fully alert, and had been keeping an eye on the overhead 'matrix' signs as I went along. Thankfully they were blissfully empty - with no warnings about accidents, fog or variable speed limits to make the journey even longer. Then all of a sudden there it was - a one word message in big orange letters above my head. "End." There was no explanation whatsoever of what it referred to. My mind starting turning over the possibilities. End of my journey? End of a speed limit I hadn't noticed for the past 50 miles? End of life as we know it? It was a welcome diversion - but whatever did the sign mean?

Religious people are sometimes mocked as forever 'looking for signs', as if they were on some kind of religious treasure hunt. But people who are really spiritual do see signs all around them. They see signs of God in the tiniest insect beneath their foot or the biggest cloud above their head. They see signs of the times in the faces, rather than the headlines that they read. They read the world around about them in the way that you and I might read a book. Truly spiritual people aren't other worldly. If anything, they live more in this world than the rest of us do. They look at the same things you and I do - it's just that they see more than the rest of us.

A couple of years ago I went to visit a nun from an Ignatian order. I had gone to seek her advice and direction over a particular matter. Being so very different from my own tradition I wasn't really sure what to expect. In fact, if truth were told, I was very nervous. Would she be all other-worldly and un-nerving? In fact, she wasn't. She was a delightful, warm serene person - with a very keen ability to read the signs around her.

To be able to do that is a gift that not all of us possess. I certainly don't. But 'keeping an eye out' for signs of God and his work, even on the most ordinary day, can certainly make the journey go better.