There seems to be a great longing for stillness and silence these days. People go to obscure monasteries and retreat houses, hoping to capture something they feel they have lost or perhaps never had. They want quiet or they feel that they need quiet. They're looking for an escape from our busy lives.
I think, too, that there is considerable --and growing-pressure to seek quiet and solitude. The Eastern religions (Buddhism in particular) with their emphasis on meditation have exerted a deep influence on westerners. Thomas Merton and his hermitage occupy a special place in our imaginations. Kathleen Norris' book about the cloistered life really took hold as well.
Fair enough. But there is also the implication that quiet and withdrawal are pre-requisites for spiritual health. So many people have bought the notion that it is only in silence and solitude that we can connect to the spiritual, to God. Consequently, there are people who sincerely believe that they have to disconnect from their real lives to connect with God. But this is not so.
Recently I've found God in the busyness of life. The irony is that I haven't gone looking for her there. She came looking for me. S/he kept popping up, in a very in-your-face kind of way, so much so that I could not ignore her.
I have been in non-stop motion since late November, "living on a plane." I started in Northern Labrador, then returned there after Christmas. That trip was followed by stays in Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, and Quebec City, as well as jaunts back to Labrador between times. It was all business, not "pleasure," although my work is filled with pleasure.
I met Indigenous women from all over Canada in Winnipeg. In Ottawa, I saw up close how national Indigenous policy gets made and how messy, cumbersome, collaborative, and even beautiful that process is (at least until the current heartless government took over). In Québec, my understanding of respect (an overused, but not well enough understood word) deepened considerably. Back in Labrador, I shared moose stew with an old friend and, in the communities, witnessed resilience and strength that still awe me.
There were times when I was literally running from one plane to another. I am a nervous flyer so I prayed desperately and bit my nails during windy landings in Deer Lake or Natuashish. I lugged my laptop, coat, and shoulder bag through Pearson Airport, sweaty and tired. I called my husband from a Halifax stopover and was too confused to tell him where I was until I laughingly remembered.
I was juggling several projects for different clients in two provinces and another at the national level. For some reason, they all needed to be done at once. All the projects centred on issues in Indigenous communities: Health, land claims, neglected and denied Aboriginal rights. Sometimes I felt despair; other times, I was elated. I felt many emotions in between and I never, ever felt bored. I learned something almost every minute. I have almost never felt so alive.
I felt God as my head crashed onto the hotel pillows, through my husband's supportive voice on the phone, in the wind that pushed the planes over Quebec farms, Manitoba prairie, and Labrador barrens. I saw God in the face of an Elder from the Yukon and heard him in the prayers we said to open our meetings. I met God in the bubbly Turkish man who drove me to Ottawa airport and in the Mexican professor-taxi driver, a refugee from the institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) long hard rule, a man empty of bitterness.
God is in our difficult, often heart-breaking work. Through our goodwill and optimism, she is at every meeting, in every document, on the side of the angels. She is there at six in the evening when we are just getting to the meat of the issue after sitting in a windowless room since before 9 am. She keeps us going. There is no other way to explain the ceaseless effort and dedication of Indigenous leaders, their staff, their lawyers and academic advisors.
When your schedule is crazy, it's tempting to say to yourself "when it calms down, when this is all over..." But this --the busyness, the chaos-- is life, too. It's part of the script, the story; it's more than something you have to get through. It's more than part of the waiting, whether you're waiting for cherished quiet time or go on that retreat you booked months ago.
Through my Indigenous work, I have learned that God is absolutely everywhere. Indigenous people have always seen God in everything and that is just where God is. We can go to a monastery or on a retreat, but we don't have to. Contrary to some religious thinking, there is no need to withdraw from the world to meet God. God will come to you because God is all around.
Dr. Maura Hanrahan is a writer, anthropologist, and painter. She is also the award-winning author of Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster, which is a Canadian bestseller. www.maurahanrahan.com
for internet marketing, web site design, development, promotion, and maintenance.
