Invite Him In

You may not know this but I do most of my shaving with an electric razor in the car while driving. It just saves me so much time. I used to shake the razor out the window speeding down the highway to blow out the trimmings but that ended about 20 years ago when the top half of my razor shot out the window as I flew down Route 17 in upstate NY! Joanne never let me live that one down!

I started the habit again recently for time purposes and it's been working better than the last time. Until this weekend, that is. I was walking out the door to get to a networking meeting where I was working with an associate as an exhibitor and I was running late. As I got into the car I realized I forgot something and got out to get it and dropped my razor onto the driveway. It was then I realized how many pieces are in that thing as they rolled onto the driveway and under my daughter's car.

I couldn't get on my knees in my dress slacks so I opened my hatch and angrily pulled a cardboard box out of the car filled with my new books and kneeled on it to gather the pieces. I was just about to boil over when I stopped. I breathed in and asked, "God, where are you in all of this?" I didn't get an answer but I did feel a great calm come over me. I made the decision to not let it all bother me and that it wasn't worth it. Being a little late was ok.

This may not seem like a big deal but for me it was because for the last 3 years I've been learning the way of Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius teaches us to invite God into it all. Bring the Sacred to the mundane. And I finally did that. In the midst of my almost losing it, I invited the inventor of life into the midst of the invention, His invention. 

We forget that God is inside us all. He flows through our veins. When we breathe in, we breathe in his breath.  He is the author of our every moment. He is closer to us than the vein in our neck. But in the midst of our daily life we get so wrapped up in what's going on around us that we ignore what's inside us.

How do we stay God focused? The best way I know of is to keep him near you through images, prayer beads, a bible, a cross, a small stone in your pocket. Something that when you see it or touch it, will remind you that God is not in some distant place beyond the blue sky and stars, but in every cell of your body, and those around you. All you really need to know is that he is in everyone and as you see others, you'll remember. And then, invite him into everything. He is there but you need to let him know that you want to see him there, in the midst of it all.

"We need to work as if our whole response to God is found in the material at hand."

St. Ignatius of Loyola