SEEING GOD'S "FINGERPRINTS" IN ATM

 

"Finding God in all things" was the talking point my son, James Ryan, brought home when he took a short break from his Jesuit novitiate. Inspired by St. Ignatius of Loyola, the phrase summarizes the Ignatian Spirituality: the conviction that God is personal, active in our everyday lives, and present in our world. It chimes in with what Thomas Aquinas taught: God is in all things, "by essence, presence, and power."

The words "in all things" seem to fly in the face of the news headlines today on what have been happening around the world. Like on the global scene, the vaccination inequity is shocking: 10 rich countries have administered 75% of all vaccine doses; poor countries, barely 2% according to WHO. Or, close to home, pushing its economy to a downward spiral with prolonged massive lockdown, PH is doomed to become "Permanent Sick Man of Asia" according to a major business group. Or sundry items in-between: on corruption, oppression, racism, elections, conflicts, and a laundry list of run-of-the-mill news, so numbing, they no longer grab attention on front pages.

But, like an oasis in the desert, we find God nowadays, in small ways, much the same as the ways of Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son, and his parables of "everyday stuff" such as the lamp, the weeds, the mustard seed, the fig tree, the lost coin, and the lost sheep, among others. Excerpted from "A Pocket Guide to Jesuit Education":

"In finding God in all things, we discover sacred moments in everyday life — grace-filled opportunities to encounter God in nature, our relationships, our academic pursuits, our own stories, and in the stories of those around us. In these sacred moments, we realize our connectedness to God and how we are called to participate in the transformation of the world in both big ways and small."

Even so, "amid the noise and haste" (to borrow the popular Max Ehrmann's "Desiderata" phrase) in our Covid-infected world today, a skeptic, there and then, may sneer: "In all things? Like a flat tire in the middle of nowhere? And a stranger that helps you is God? Really?"

Many years ago, my wife and I, as a couple, were involved in the Couples for Christ's work with the poor. Every weekend, we went off and turned up in a particular depressed area in the province and joined our community there in sharing our talents and resources in uplifting the lives of the poor. A whole day trip to the province would pose a dilemma to my wife as a bank officer at that time. She was responsible for keeping the smooth operation of the ATM: troubleshooting mainly every time the machine jams mechanically when a printed receipt gets stuck – hence, halting the ATM operation.

Imagine this bleak scenario. At the peak of one particular crowded cash withdrawal weekend, the ATM jams (she would get an alert message through her cell phone), and we are many hours-drive away in the province. Question: What would we do? Answer: We would pray it would never happen. So, we would pray for our one and only one preventive solution to such a dilemma. Before going off to the province, we would "pray over" the ATM asking God to take care of it while we're taking care of His business.

In that whole year when my wife was responsible for her bank's ATM smooth operation, not a single instance throughout our provincial weekend trips had she got a message from her cell phone about the jammed ATM. The wonder of wonders! At the end of that year, she got the top ATM management award among hundreds of her bank's ATMs operated all over the country. M. Scott Peck, M.D., author of the book "The Road Less Traveled," wrote:

In my primary identity as a scientist, I want and like proof. Being as much a logical sort as a mystical one, I expect statistical proof whenever possible to convince me of things. But throughout my twenties and thirties and as I continued to mature, I've become more and more impressed by the frequency of statistically highly improbable events. In their improbability, I gradually began to see the fingerprints of God.

To our skeptic friend: Yup, not only in flat tires would one see God's "fingerprints" but also in ATMs. And so one does, even in Covid-19 or in an election, a complex blueprint that may take a good deal of time due to revisions on His drawing board: the final master plan, for sure, would be a big breaking news story to read on a front page.