At Any Given Moment

Finding God in my life is very simple and rarely complicated. God thoroughly knows me, and therefore, has little trouble catching my attention at any given moment. God’s awareness of my radar-like detection of all things tiny, ordinary, and often unnoticed by others makes me fair game for the gentle personal nudges God slips into my daily life. I am the one who sees a gorgeous monarch butterfly soaring around the bushes outside the church after a funeral and recognizes the message of peace and hope its presence wishes to extend. The miniature violet poking its way through a crack in the sidewalk can draw me into its awesome strength and resilience. Clever and mischievous squirrels scampering up and down the towering oak tree outside my bedroom window transport me from Morning Prayer into the experience of God’s flourishing creation bursting forth into a new day. All of these otherwise hidden messages would go unreceived if it weren’t for my desire and ability to find God in the whisper of the world around me. For this I am grateful.

However, one of my most powerful experiences of God each day is in, of course, a most unlikely place: the girls’ restroom at an inner-city elementary school where I am the First Grade teacher. Twice a day, my Aide and I take the boys and girls for their restroom break. It is during these trips that I have the privilege of seeing one or more of my 13 girls stoop down to tie a classmate’s shoe lace, straighten another’s collar and snap on her tie, or simply step aside to make room at the sink as they wash their hands together. All this goes on silently in a matter of 10 minutes as we wait alongside the wall for each to have her turn. These multiple forms of charity and kindness began one day a few weeks ago when I simply said, “Let me see whom I can recognize as a good friend of another classmate or a friend of God.” With that invitation came these simple, yet sincere, acts of love and service.

Our Sisters of Saint Joseph Constitutions states: “Our spirituality is a basic gospel call to love of God and our neighbor.” The 24 six and seven-year-olds I’m with each day remind me of this. Certainly some of us will do absolutely phenomenal things within our lifetime. However, the majority of us are ordinary children of God who live extraordinary lives of Christ-centered witness due to the fact that we remember from whom we have come!

Before my class dismisses each afternoon, I lead them in this two-part mantra. The first part is an adapted quote from the movie “The Help” and the second is a quote that one of the Novice Directors sent us out with on our ministry day. I say, “Now girls and boys remember: ‘You are kind. You are smart. You are important.’ Therefore, ‘Go out into the world and make God look good today!’”

Sister Ann Marie Gass, SSJ