The real treasure of “Just Call Me López” remains partially hidden (but always in plain sight) throughout the book. For what we gain by reading this fable is what lies at the heart of Ignatian spirituality itself: If we pay attention to what’s going on in our own lives and hearts (even the most seemingly unbelievable moments), and if we heed the feelings and emotions that accompany these events, we come just that much closer to finding God. For God is in the details and the moments of our lives.
Just as we can observe nature as it moves and grows and reproduces, so too can we learn to look for and notice the movement of God in our lives.
It’s so easy to go through life not astonished because we don’t look and listen for these sideways glances into the mind and heart of God. They are there, ever present, like their creator, but it’s up to us to look, see, note and name them.
The essence of love is giving without thought of remuneration, of listening without regard to what we get out of the conversation. If we can give nothing else to another person, we can give them our attention. We can turn off our cell phones and computers and televisions and just sit a foot apart, look into each other’s eyes and listen to one another.
Our ability to be both truly present to one another and aware of God’s presence in our lives is a gift unto itself. It is our calling. There’s nothing more important we can do today.
Located between Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek is one of the region’s manmade (and woman-designed!) wonders: The Chapel of the Holy Cross.
Whether I have been healed by God through the power of prayer or through the natural reactions of my God-gifted body, I am – for now anyway – healed. Whatever the outcome, I have been healed, for I am at peace. So for me the question remains the one posed at the top of this reflection by the great New England naturalist poet Mary Oliver, as it is should for everyone, regardless of health or healing: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
For how sad it is that any of us might not do what we seem called to do, that we might live our lives never embracing the small voice inside us that says, “teach” or “sing” or “nurse” or “own a business” or “be of service…”
If we live our lives well (at least this is the way I define “well”) then we live not in numbness and lethargy and apathy, but fully alive and feeling, aware of the sacred around us, and with an ongoing commitment to living an examined life — one centered on the presence of God, the teachings of Christ, and the power of the individual to change the world in some way, however small.
Tollers’ eyes opened wide when he heard the words. He smiled a knowing smile for just an instant before lowering his head into his hands. His tears flowed freely and painfully and overwhelmingly like a cleansing, purifying flood, like a baptism of fire and rain, and for the first time in nearly a decade he knew he had found what he had been looking for.