What Are We Looking For?

Ms Kerry McCullough | Chaplain

“Good morning”, said the little prince.

“Good morning”, said the railway switchman.

“What is it that you do here”? asked the little prince.

“I sort the travelers into bundles of a thousand”, the switchman said. “I dispatch the trains that carry them, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left”.

And a brightly lit express train, roaring like thunder, shook the switchman’s cabin.

“What a hurry they’re in”, said the little prince. “What are they looking for”?

“Not even the engineer on the locomotive knows”, the switchman said.

And another brightly lit express train thundered by in the opposite direction.

“Are they coming back already”? asked the little prince.

“It’s not the same ones”, the switchman said. “It’s an exchange”.

“They weren’t satisfied, where they were”? asked the little prince.

“No one is ever satisfied where he is”, the switchman said.

And a third brightly lit express train thundered past.

“Are they chasing the first travelers”? asked the little prince.

“They’re not chasing anything”, the switchman said. “They’re sleeping in there, or else they’re yawning. Only the children are pressing their noses against the windowpanes”.

“Only the children know what they’re looking for”, said the little prince. “They spend their time on a rag doll and it becomes very important, and if it’s taken away from them, they cry …”.

“They’re lucky”, the switchman said.

This little exchange is from Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s delightful story, The Little Prince. I first read The Little Prince when I was a student of French a long time ago and its utter honesty and penetrating wisdom, so simply expressed through the ponderings of the little prince, never cease to draw me in. And in this extract, wise words indeed from that quaint little character. We are lucky when we know what we’re looking for. We are lucky when we spend our time on that ‘rag doll’ and it becomes very important.

The picture of the express trains thundering past, this way and that, is a rather apt image of twenty-first century living. It can seem that there is a dizzying array of activities, ‘must dos’, constantly demanding our attention, our commitment. As Henri Nouwen says: “One of the most obvious characteristics of our daily lives is that we are busy. Our lives often seem like overpacked suitcases bursting at the seams. In fact, we are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, unrealised proposals. Although we are very busy, we have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligations”.

How true this can be! And of course, what happens if we succumb to this way of living, is that we ‘fall asleep’. Just like the passengers in the express trains we can be so caught up in the rapid flow of life as we are dragged along, that in fact we are never quite awake to the wonder and magnificence of life. Anthony De Mello, the Indian Jesuit spiritual teacher, describes it in this way: “Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they die in their sleep. They never understand the loveliness, the beauty, and the sacredness of this thing that we call human existence”. And he goes on to say that what we need to do is wake up!

To wake up does not require more activity! We do not need more rushing around, more to pack into our days, more to take on, more to be involved in. No! Paradoxically, to wake up we need to be still. We need to press our nose against the windowpane. And look. The more we look, the more lingering our gaze, the more awake we will become.

We call this contemplation. And contemplation is a way of praying. Contemplative prayer has been likened to the attitude of a mother watching over the cradle of her child. She is utterly absorbed in the gaze, without thinking or words, amidst all the interruptions around her. She has settled her gaze on the child she loves, and it absorbs her entirely. As she gazes, she sees more and more of the child. Her love keeps her there, looking. She is utterly ‘awake’ to that child.

Contemplation is just like this. We might say it is a transformation of consciousness. There is a real ‘seeing’ in this altered awareness. Beyond words and concepts and discourse we become aware of what is. We are awakened to it. In contemplation we abandon words, we have no need of them. Rather than talking about God, or even talking to God, we simply rest in God, with God. The Franciscan spiritual writer, Fr Richard Rohr, says that “whatever obsessive thought, compulsive thought, negative or paranoid thought or feeling – whatever comes, try to gently let go of it”. Like the child with the rag doll which becomes very important to her because she simply spends time with it, so too, as we let go of those often compulsive and demanding thoughts and preoccupations, we can awaken to God.

The Greek writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, has a wonderful description of an experience from his childhood which I think is a beautiful image of contemplative prayer. This is what he recounts: “When I was a child, I became one with sky, insects, sea, wind – whatever I saw or touched. Shutting my eyes contentedly, I used to hold out my palms and wait. God always came … as long as I remained a child. Christianity assures us of the same thing. God will always come to us”.

Contemplative prayer is not passive. Rather it is an active thing: we ‘shut our eyes’, we let go of what is occupying us at that moment; we ‘hold out our palms and wait’; we open our hearts, minds, our very being to God. ‘As long as I remain a child’. As we detach from the activities of the mind and body and feelings, we exist simply in the present, in the present moment. “There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence” (Meister Eckhart).

Contemplation happens not only in moments when we deliberately enter into quiet and prayer. It is also a way of looking at reality. As a contemplative, we see God in everything. It is the lens through which we look at everything, wherever we are, whatever we may be doing. Whether we are chopping vegetables, caring for our children, making our way to work, out walking at dawn or crossing the quad, we can be truly awake to that moment. One of the great contemplatives and spiritual teachers of the last century, Thomas Merton, says: “For it is God’s love that warms me in the sun and God’s love that sends the cold rain. It is God’s love that feeds me in the bread I eat. It is the love of God that sends the winter days when I am cold and sick and the hot summer when I labour and my clothes are full of sweat. It is God’s love that speaks to me in the birds and the streams but also in the clamour of the city”. Merton’s words echo those of St Ignatius of Loyola whose spiritual path is firmly grounded in just such contemplative awareness. He speaks of ‘finding God in all things’, in the ordinariness of our daily lives. This too is the path taken by Mary Ward and her Sisters when she founded the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and it is what guides our lives and informs our experiences today in all our Loreto communities. It is also what we refer to as sacramentality in our Catholic tradition: the understanding that the universe is graced and blessed and is the place where we encounter God. We are invited to awaken to the possibility of finding God in our words, actions, thoughts, and relationships, to make them sacramental.

Noses pressed against the windowpanes, their full attention in the moment, the children are awake, contemplative! A beautiful invitation to us to hold on to the ‘rag doll’, keep looking, gazing. Awaken. The more we contemplate the face of God in all things, everywhere, the more awake we will be to this magnificent reality we call life. As Meister Eckhart says, “God is at home. It is we who have gone out”.