Listening to life stories brings us closer to God

The column below appears in today's Irish Times under 'Thinking Anew' on page 20 of the main paper.

Michael Commane
This day last month I was on an underground train in Berlin between Wittenau and Friedrichstraße when a  young man accompanied by his black dog began to move up the train asking people for money. Sitting opposite me was a young woman, dressed in a style that seemed somewhat 'unusual' to me.

Just as the young man approached our seat and politely asked for help she opened her purse, smiled and gave him something. It was more than I did. I - an ordained priest -  did not want to give him money nor did I want to engage him in anyway whatsoever.

A perfect example of how one person dismisses someone and how another person engages with him and gives him something, which most likely made his life somewhat more tolerable. Of course I was ashamed of myself. Not only had she shown me up but she also made me think again about the silly judgments I had made about her because of her attire. To blazes with Shakespeare and his "apparel oft proclaim the man". Far too easily we comply with a status quo that dulls our humanity.

In tomorrow's Gospel (Matthew 15: 21 - 28) a woman comes to Jesus asking him to help her daughter. She is clearly making something of a nuisance of herself so his disciples suggest to Jesus: "Send her away: see how she is shouting after us." (Matthew 15: 23)

Not only does Jesus not listen to them but he tells them that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the nation of Israel. He listens to the woman, realises her great faith and cures her daughter.

I was on that train as I was working as a chaplain in a Berlin general hospital with approximately 430 beds during the month of July.

Going from room to room, listening to people’s stories, on many occasions observing broken bodies, gave me pause for thought. Everyone had a story to tell. A woman  recalled being force marched from East Prussia at the end of the war. She was able to describe to me the horror as if it had happened yesterday. Another woman said her father never returned from the Russian campaign. On another occasion I found myself standing in an intensive care unit praying with a family as their father was within hours of dying.

Many times every day I asked myself about the great questions: what at all is life about, is there a God, is there life after death and if so what can we say about it?

I must admit I came up with no answers, just so many doubts and uncertainties. But there was something that remained constant every day and weaved itself right through every room in the hospital. Each person had a story to tell, amazing stories abounded and most patients were only too delighted to tell their stories. Because their lives, which really was all they knew, were wrapped up in their stories.

For the entire month the word 'God' was seldom if ever heard or spoken. It was in a way far too 'big' a word or idea to throw about. And yet the idea or thought of God was constantly hovering about in all sort of forms and shapes.

Indeed, just as the young woman on the train, did not speak God's name, yet she was living out exactly what Jesus does in tomorrow's Gospel.

Listening to life stories and observing how people behave, without ever mentioning anything about God, so often we are forced to think and ask about God.  In taking note of the people who do all the talking about God, we need to open our eyes to those who live God's Word without uttering it.