We must cultivate an awareness of living in God's presence.

Sunday, 10/20/13

In the first reading the forces of Israel were engaged in battle, and as long as Moses kept his arms held high, the fighting went with Israel; but any time he let his arms fall, the fighting favored the enemy.

That symbolic tale tells us that things will go well for us as long as we stay in contact with God. In Paul’s Letter to Timothy he reminded him that they were in God’s presence. 

Last night I watched “My Seven Years in Tibet,” it was the movie version of a true story I read twenty years ago. An Austrian champion mountain climber, Heinrich Harrer, was climbing in northern India in 1939. But, when World War II started, the British there imprisoned him as an enemy of war. While in their camp, he received word that his wife had borne him a son. Hienrich escaped, and after living for three  years as an animal in the Himalayas he forced his way into Tibet.

There, he became tutor to a nine-year-old Dalai Lama, and when his precious pupil asked him if he ever thought of his son, he gave a striking answer. He said he fell asleep thinking of his son, He awoke thinking of him, and he mentally had him with  him all through his days. 

We are told to pray always, but it would be difficult to form the words for an endless prayer. But, we could learn a lesson from Heinrich, that mountain climber. We could cultivate an abiding consciousness of being in God’s presence. We could be constantly desirous of being helpful to his other childen.