Light as aFeather

                   Light as a Feather

This painting by a six- year-old girl sums up what I am trying to do in my blog!  In its innocence it tallies with today’s anecdote of a little coincidence which brought me joy. 

The story is about a bubble!

“Ah”, you may be thinking, “She’s in her second childhood and she has ‘lost her marbles’ – so now it’s bubbles!”

Well no, not really - but you can judge for yourself…  At first glance, the story may seem to be of very little substance. Yet it contains the important topic of surrendering one’s own will to God’s will, as in the words in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven’.

This is an idea which many secular people – and even many church goers – find totally unacceptable. Often I have heard the response: “Surely we have been given free will!  I make up my own mind about how to live, without recourse to thinking about God – especially as I don’t even know if there is a God!”   If this is your attitude, please temporarily suspend your disbelief!

                  

              As I woke up one Wednesday morning, I remembered with some alarm all the things I had to fit into that day: emergency dental appointment, dog-walking, lunch, French class, shopping, cooking.  Coping with all that was going to be tricky!  To calm myself down I reached for a book which I kept by my bedside: The Sacrament of the Present Moment, by Jean-Paul de Cassade.  Based on the words ‘Thy will be done’, the book is about the joy we can experience if we surrender our own will to God’s will, trying to follow His guidance every moment of the day.  Opening it at random, I read:

‘The only condition necessary for this state of self-surrender is the present moment in which the soul, light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child, responds to every moment of grace like a floating balloon.’

Being physically somewhat heavy, I chuckled at the thought of my soul floating light as a feather as I made my way downstairs for breakfast.  But it worked!  This image stayed with me, keeping me calm, even when the phone rang just as I was about to set off for the dentist’s surgery.  It was my elder daughter Sally, with a brief message.  She apologised for being too busy to stop for a chat.  (Like mother, like daughter!)  We both laughed as I advised her just to float through the day, ‘light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child’.

Two hours later these words were unexpectedly reinforced by a delightful little coincidence. 

I was hurrying towards my car.  Across the road from me two women were standing chatting.  One of them had a pushchair in which sat a little boy of about eighteen months.  Suddenly, between the three of them and me there appeared a beautiful bubble, floating slowly along the middle of the road.  Astonished, I looked to see where it had come from.  The little boy wasn’t blowing bubbles, and the two women were too engrossed in their conversation.  Nobody else was in sight!

As I gazed at it in awe, laughing with delight at the coincidental timing of its mysterious appearance, the wee boy too caught sight of the lovely bubble as it floated gracefully past, gleaming iridescent in the sunlight.  Staring in wonder, he silently pointed to it with a tiny index finger.  I too pointed towards it, smiling at him as we shared this delightful, innocent little secret.  As I drove off, I waved goodbye and he gave me a tiny wave in return.  Still amazed, I gave thanks for that inspiring ‘moment of grace’ to which we both had responded that morning in Crandleyhill Road.