I have read, and re-read a dozen times at least in the last few days, Merton's letter to a young activist. Merton talks about letting go of results and letting go of personal satisfaction, letting go of generalized ideals in favor of the personal relationship. I too have grappled with that thought, and have come to believe that I may make a difference one person at a time -- that it is about process rather than outcome. Though, with the patients who are seen at the clinic, we have had two people die -- the process did not work for them. The "health care process" took one man off the kidney transplant list at UCD Med center because he did not have documents, and it was assumed that he would not be able to afford the anti-rejection drugs. He died of heart and kidney failure. I can still see has face, a Fiji man. There is a saying that "It's business," meaning that it is not personal. Since the invention of that cliche, business has become more pseudo-personal after a fashion. Marketing targets one's cell phone and one's email -- some grabbing a GPS signal to find our location or intercepting our web browser choices to offer us local deals. Process has become commercial, mistaking the statistic for the for the person -- but needs to become truly more personal.
Merton further says in the letter, "The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they suddenly happen . . ." Or perhaps, as St. Paul put it, "no one may boast." (Ephesians 2: 8-9). It is not our doing in the end, but God's. Or as Magdalen Damen put it, Deus providebit, God will provide. In the end it is about trust.
At the Clara's House Tea this afternoon, Claire Graham, SSS, talked about seeing God in the eyes of a young man years ago. He was sitting by the side of St. Francis Church in Sacramento crying, sort of tucked into a little niche along K Street. His chest was heaving with pain and tears. Claire says that she asked him if she could help, and when the young man looked up into her eyes, she saw in them the face of God. Claire is one of the most Franciscan of people I know. God is in relationship.
Merton continues with a statement about finding meaning in one's work: "The great thing after all is to live, not to pour out your life in the service of a myth; and we turn the best things into myths." And so here I am, trying to discern whether I am pursuing a myth or becoming aware of a reality, or maybe a little of both. I am certain of one thing, though. Like Claire, I too have looked into a patient's or a client's or a friend's eyes and have seen the face of God. In the end, the "work" is not the journey. The "work" is how well we travel along the way, how well we journey. Merton concludes: "The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do His will, we will be helping in this process." I am trusting that whatever I am supposed to be, and to be doing, is what will happen . . . and so my process of discernment continues . . .
