“We must learn that life itself is of God, that the natural is sacred, and that an inward life and immersion in life are of a piece. If we are in God, then all of life becomes sacred to us. To seek God means to find God around us. The god-questions propel us into life, in fact. It is precisely when we begin to see the world through the eyes of God that life becomes the measure of our godliness. Then life becomes the stuff of holiness for us, not a spiritual threat. Human life becomes the eternal life of the spirit. ‘If every day is an awakening, you will never grow old. You will just keep growing,’ Gail Sheedy wrote. But I wrote back (in her journal quoted below), after years of experience, a lifetime of search marked by a lifetime of holy failures.

Well, it is true, I think,
that every day we grow –
but I am not so certain that
every day is an awakening.

Sometimes we grow in
silent places that do not
burst through to daylight
and voice for years.

Sometimes we wake up
and reach back and know newly,
finally, what we thought we knew or
did not want to know years before.
That’s the real awakening.’”

- From Called to Question
a spiritual memoir by Joan Chittister

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