/19

‘If I had a Hammer’ became the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.A.

When we are born and come into contact with the giver and author of life we are like a block of granite brought into the sculptor’s studio. As we respond to the life long calling and work of God, we are bit by bit created and brought out of this block of granite and shaped by His hand with our willing acquiescence. By shutting our hearts to Him we can of course stymie that work. If we are open we will encounter His quiet voice and gentle hand in surprising places.

When Trini Lopez crackled from the valve radio tuned the always fading Radio Luxembourg singing If I Had A Hammer, I was in my childhood bedroom in the 1950s. This song moved me in my prepubescent life to have a life long desire for love and justice. This was the hand of God beginning to shape me to become a servant, a tool in his beloved hands. Later when George Harrison sang My Sweet Lord, the revelation of a loving adoring relationship with My Lord was born in my mind and caused a huge shift in my teenage understanding of the divine.

Neither song was Christian in anyway. One was written to support the idealism of  Communism and the other about the Hindu god Krishna. Nevertheless the one true God used both to chip away at me, to speak to me, to call me irresistibility to the path of Grace. 

God speaks to us all the time when our hearts are open. It is only now looking back do I understand God’s work in my prepubescent life. The loving devotional life that I was being called to was crystal clear when I heard the words of George Harrison. Sometimes we know we are being moulded at others the work goes on without our being aware.

I grew up in staunchly, Sabbath observing, Presbyterian Scotland. As the years passed I could find no way within that structure to express the deep devotional needs of my soul. There was the bad side of Christianity about judging and condemnation and an angry God who scrutinised our every move waiting to punish us. And it was cold. No one spoke about faith.

Yet despite what I felt I was observing experiencing the Lord remained at work within me despite my many failings and grievous sins,  He never abandoned me. It is a life long work, this changing us, this shaping the block of granite into something beautiful. 

So never despair. God is with you. If you let a Him you will be transformed into the most beautiful creation.

For years I waited for the Lord to open the door that would allow me to escape from the situation I found myself in, a square peg in a round hole. Like the children of Israel spending forty long years in the wilderness, trying to get to the Promised Land, it took me slightly longer before the Lord let me shake the dust off my feet and without a single hesitation be received into the Catholic Church. Here the song of my heart, my longing to fall in adoration before the divine was normative. I was able finally to express my love within the Divine Mercy of Our Lord.

The purpose of this chapter it to illustrate the way the Lord is constantly at work in our lives, and to realise that it is a long rocky road. God leads us and keeps us safe within his Amazing Grace. We need to be willing to work to His timetable and not our own. He knows what He is doing with us, even when we can't see it.

Each of our journey stories will be different. Remember that!