From the Chaplains

As I write, I sit on Marden Lawn, enjoying the heat of the sun’s rays. I look and see the College campus enlivened by the fresh burst of sunshine, the magpies are cheekier, garden beds are blooming, and the students have a quickness in their steps. The hot pink azaleas remind us that Spring is almost here, and staff enjoying picnics at lunchtime tells us that we are very ready to come out of Winter’s hibernation. 

Many staff have been commenting, “Isn’t it great to see the sun come out?” This got me thinking, has the sun really come out? It’s a funny expression isn’t it, because the truth is, the sun’s rays are always warming the earth. It is we who now feel it because the clouds have been blown off-shore, revealing the sun’s ever faithful presence with us. 

It reminds me that like the sun, sometimes unseen and unfelt, there is always something sacred and wonderful happening within our lives. It calls me to look beyond the “seen” and “felt” life of the everyday, and uncover the eternal beauty in the ordinariness and unseen. 

Henri Nouwen once commented,  

 “Contemplative life is a human response to the fundamental fact that the central things in life, although spiritually perceptible, remain invisible in large measure and can very easily be overlooked by the inattentive, busy, distracted person that each of us can so readily become. The contemplative looks not so much around things but through them into their centre. Through their centre he discovers the world of spiritual beauty that is more real, has more density, more mass, more energy, and greater intensity than physical matter. In effect, the beauty of physical matter is a reflection of its inner content. 

To start seeing that the many events of our day, week, or year are not in the way of our search for a full life but are rather the way to it is a real experience of conversion. We discover that cleaning and cooking, writing letters and doing professional work, visiting people and caring for others, are not a series of random events that prevent us from realizing our deepest self. These natural, daily activities contain within them some transforming power that changes how we live.” 

Loving God, may we be attentive to the sacred in our midst. Thank you for making every-day events in our lives the way to discovering you within ourselves, rather than preventing it. May we hear your call to see your beauty, your image in those we encounter each day. May we glimpse the eternal within the ordinary moments of our lives. And even when unseen and unfelt, may we know your ever-faithful presence with us. Amen 

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 

Cass Blake

College Chaplain