Make it Work

I grew up with my dad's consoling answer, "I don't know, we'll make it work." This, inevitably, meant that HE would make it work out and I just had to sit tight and wait. Patiently. It usually, if not always, did work out. Generally, it meant he had to work harder, but he was always willing to do that for the right things in life, and for just about anyone.... or maybe simply everyone.

So, I grew, and I find myself saying "I don't know. We'll make it work." Like my father, I suppose that if I work extra hard and think and pray extra hard, well, then, it will work out. Because, that's the way the world works in the USA. Hard work = Good Results. Right?

Yes, but the the good results come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, because the path to heaven looks a bit different for everyone, and this - in the end - is the only good result that our hard work, prayer, and thought can really ever achieve. This wasn't an easy thing to swallow.No, I'd say it was a huge blow to realize that no matter how hard I worked, somethings were so out of my control, that it was like working to keep the sun in the sky a few minutes longer.

I began to think of where the peace comes from? Naturally, I turned my mind to the frail "work horse" we more appropriately call St. Maximilian. This man's dreams were all but shattered. He died not knowing if his beloved Friary was even intact. He died perhaps with a premonition of the imminent danger facing Mugensai no Sono. He died having worked himself to death, quite literally, and to what end? A peaceful one.

His 'secret' - hardly kept to himself - was w=W. When our will is equal to God's Will, then we are at peace. We trust with luminous faith that what seems to be a failure is just another step on the road to heaven. It occurred to me, then, that w=W might also stand for when our work is God's Work! How wonderful!

While I can't focus as much on results as I once did, I can focus all the more on the work and the will. Will to make every action His action and then He can do what HE WILLS.