i AM DoG gone tired

I'm exhausted (after a long week of teaching Padre Rafa had me spend the weekend with high schoolers on retreat...), so I can't promise much from this reflection only that it fulfills my earlier promise of posting every Sunday.

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Walking home Thursday night from dinner at my principal's house I found myself staring upward. Maybe this wasn't the safest decision considering Salvadoran road quality, but the moonless night sky provided too good of a view to look elsewhere. Earlier that day I'd heard a guy playing Dave Matthew's Band's "Satellite" on guitar as I walked home from work, so in the back of my head I had expectations. Oddly, they were fulfilled more triumphantly with a sizeable shooting star. It streaked across a third of the sky and left me breathless.

Finding God in things like shooting stars on perfectly black nights in the trash filled streets of El Salvador is easy. Events like this could be called positive contrast experiences, to twist Ed Schillebeeckx's words a bit. When I'm granted the gift of finding simple natural beauty in a landscape so scarred by war and hatred, trash and feces, poverty and abuse, I am not shocked that I "find God". What I struggle with daily is the opposite, how can I experience God in the anger, resentment, racism, classism, and rampant self-loathing present here?

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The week of teaching was especially rough for me. I hit the wall where my limited Spanish was no longer enough to maintain control of my classroom. My anger boiled over. I yelled at a few kids. I even physically picked one and sat him in his desk. Feeling anger and frustration upset me. They are not qualities I like to associate with myself.

Throughout my life I've never been able to find God in negative things. Fr. Tom Schubeck, S.J., uses Schillebeeckx's negative contrast experiences to teach undergrads about how injustice can teach us about the indescribable truth that is true human dignity and justice. While I agree that negative experiences can point to sacredness of their opposite, I've always wanted more from them. I want to find God in all things.

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As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary (who) sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me." The Lord said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her. - Luke 10:38-42

Two thoughts:

The first is that possibly my conception of God needs to change. Maybe a God that is all-loving has righteous anger and dignified frustration. Quite possibly God would be frustrated with people that fail to respect themselves or others. Quite possibly I need to acknowledge that frustration with what is bad is a normal, healthy reaction.

The second thought is that anger and frustration are signs that I'm not looking for God at that given time. Maybe I'm trying too hard to impose my will, my ego, my plan on a given situation and I'm not, like Mary, taking the time sit find Christ in the children I teach. Maybe when I boil over, I need to remember to sit at the feet of the Christ in each and every one of my students AND to listen closely to their needs.

Maybe this isn't finding God in all things, but it’s using all things to find God. And that, I can live with.