During my anxious moments, I looked at the bulletin board opposite me and suddenly my eyes focused on a photo of an evocative painting. God the Father stood in turbulent water during a storm; lightning flashed out of dark clouds around His head and stabbed the waves. A tiny woman in a small, rocking boat lifted her arms towards God and His hands reached for hers. The caption was "Father, I place my life in Your hands."
It seemed a depiction of my favorite psalm! "All Your billows in waves have gone over me....Why are you cast down, Oh my soul?....Hope in God!"
Seeing this painting instantly calmed me and sent my soul back to my Source and Strength: my Heavenly Father. I wondered how many others sitting in the same chair where I sat, some with far greater worries than mine, had looked at that painting and felt God's peace and hope surround them during their inner storms. I said a prayer for the sensitive person who had placed it there.
So often when we're in the middle of inner storms and the outer storms of stressful, uncertain circumstances, our panicked minds rush madly in a million directions, propelled by the assailing winds of numerous fears. There could be so many dreadful outcomes! We don't know which way to go. Or we think we know the right direction, but we've made the decision based on either our emotions or our own limited knowledge. We pace the floor, make frantic phone calls, get into heated arguments. And really, in spite of all our so-called activity, we're going nowhere.
Here's where St. Brendan, the Irish Odysseus, the patron saint of sailors, travelers, scuba divers, and whales, can help us. Brendan of Clonfert, a priest, (484-577) was an early Irish monastic saint, one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, renowned for his twenty years of expeditions by boat around the islands surrounding Ireland to spread the Word of God and to build monasteries. He visited the Arran islands, Himba, where he met St. Columba, Wales, Brittany, and even is said to have sighted a mysterious isle of St. Brendan. Later, he set sail for parts unknown.
Not entirely sure where all his voyages took him geographically, some modern enthusiasts are said to have proven that a leather-clad boat such as the ones he used could have taken him as far as America (which is why the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has a large stained glass window commemorating his adventures.)
A famous poem, "The Voyage of St. Brendan," (versions exist in both Irish and Latin, the earliest written around 900 A.D., and there's a modern version in English, translated by Gerard McNamara) describes Brendan's most legendary voyage. He is supposed to have set sail into the Atlantic accompanied by sixteen pilgrims, and spent seven years searching for what various translators refer to as the Isle of the Blessed, or Paradise, or the Garden of Eden. It was a harrowing trip. The boat was often swamped by storms. Once they climbed onto an island, which began to sink into the water because the "island" was really a whale. They encountered a sea monster.
Through it all, Brendan remained a calm, prayerful leader. During one stressful event, he counseled the frightened pilgrims in these words:
"Children, do not tire your limbs foolishly. Is not the all-powerful God, the pilot and sailor of our boat? God guides our journey just as God will."
When we become agitated, angry, fearful, fall into a panic, explode at the people around us, frantically search for an instant solution to everything, - aren't we "tiring our limbs foolishly"? Wouldn't going calmly to God in prayer be wiser? Our sitting silently with God, allowing Him to fill our minds with calm and hope and insight, allows God to be the pilot of our boat in whatever storms try to overturn us. We turn the rudder and oars over to God, and God helps us learn how to steer in the right direction. God, after all, is the One Who knows the best destination for us! He may lead us into a safe, familiar harbor, or off into unknown waters to bring us to a strange port that is nonetheless perfect for us.
God also knows the best direction for our Ship of State. As Americans search frantically for various solutions to the real threat of extremist terrorism in our country, as politicians, fueled by anger and fear, make various suggestions of actions and policies to keep our country safe, - it's time to go to God.
It's time to sit humbly in prayer and ask God our Pilot, to guide Americans through the outer storm of terrorist attacks and the inner storm of our fears and anger, and to direct and inspire us and our politicians. Ask God our Pilot to guide our politicians to make wise, balanced decisions on policies that will bring radical Islamic terrorists like ISIS and their plots into the light, keep them from attacking us further, yet not cause harm to the thousands of innocent, religious Muslims in our country. Ask God our Pilot to guide us to give our politicians wise, prudent, and compassionate feedback on what actions we want them to take.
This beautiful Prayer of St. Brendan, the Contemplative, can center us in peace during the many storms that beset us all:
"Help me to journey beyond the familiar
and into the unknown.
Give me the faith to leave old ways
and break fresh ground with You.
Christ of the Mysteries, I trust You
to be stronger than each storm within me.
I will trust in the darkness and know
that my times, even now, are in Your hands.
Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,
and somehow make my obedience count for You.
Amen.