Surprises of The God of Surprises - Essay Example

Surprises of The God of Surprises There are many attributes to God and in the attempt to make Him tangible to us, spiritual writers have been giving God different names based on the spiritual experience of the faith community. The Old Testament and the New Testament God beguiles our nomenclature. However, Gerard Hughes in his The God of Surprises published in 1985, epitomizes the nature of God through the beautiful title. The book is a short work but the penetrating vision of the book, drawn from the pondering of the word of God in the true Jesuit tradition of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises makes it one of the influential documents of our spiritually bankrupt times. The book is built around some of the cardinal pillars of traditional Christian spirituality. The aim of Christian spirituality is to establish an intimate partnership with God the Father, which encompasses the entire creation. Hughes analyses the spiritual malaise of the contemporary life and seeks to show the way to set it aright, drawing heavily on the Word of God and the perennial sources of traditional Christian spirituality whose relevance is undying and a valid tool for the moral reawakening of the sordid world of ours. In The God of Surprises, Hughes stresses the need for spirituality based on deep interiority. There is a cleavage in our thinking, between the spiritual and temporal. This prevents us from achieving an integrated spiritual life. The book invites us to make a journey to our own inner self and there encounter God, the God of surprises. This encounter will integrate us to ourselves and to the world around and in the process, we will see how the creation is permeated with the all-encompassing touch of a benign Father. Through out the book Hughes seems to warn the danger of creating a God in our own image. The point that he reiterates in his work is the mystery of God’s ways with the world and men. Some times God gives us the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. However to balance this view of God, Hughes has delineated the Prodigal Father. The chief delight of this Father is to share his everything in banquets to which all are invited. The invitees are not the best specimens of humanity, rather the poor, the cripple, the blind and in fact all who are interested in sharing His generosity. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father’s prodigality towards the son who defamed the status of family in wasteful debauchery shocks the reader. To our prudent and well-measured dealing to others based on their merit and our future benefit from them, the God of surprises is foolishly lavish in his blessings, which is gratuitously given to all. The foolish prodigality of the God of surprises who leaves the ninety-nine to look for the one that is missing baffles our logic trained in the Aristotelian idea of virtue which is the choice of the golden mean avoiding extremes. Similarly the system of paying all who worked in the same measure at the end of the day, irrespective of the time they joined for duty, puzzles us who are used to time punching cards and attendance registers. As we progress through the pages of The God of Surprises, the picture of God that looms large before us is that of a God who is more close to all of us than we can ever imagine in our wildest dreams. It is also a book of spiritual pilgrimage to discover the treasure hidden with in us. The book helps us to discern the unexpected ways in which God shows Himself. We see the image of God delivered to us by the stars and storms. Just like the Spiritual Exercises, the book is not meant for gulping at one sitting. The book can transform the person to enable him to surrender his will to the will of God, if relished in small meditative tonic dozes. Personal Reflections on The God of Surprises Gerard Hughes’ The God of Surprises is one of the books worth reading a second or third time. The work of Holy Spirit is to renew the God’s people constantly and to make them fit to fulfil the purpose for which God has made them. The best aid for this indeed is the pondering the word of God revealed to us in the scripture. Apart from the perennial source of the Bible, the Christian tradition over the past two thousand years also is a nourishing pool of grace. The writings of the Father’s of the Church and the collective theological meditations of the various Churches of Christ constantly contribute a deeper understanding of God’s nature. As a person trying to emulate Christ, Hughes’, The God of Surprises, was no small surprise to me. What delighted me most was the delineation of a Father who is personally concerned about every one and who is so close to each of us in a way we can never fully grasp. The mystery of God’s work in the world today is best understood only when we can understand the God of surprises working in the world today and in each of us. This God of surprises sent His only son to the world and in the salvific work disempowered himself so totally and so completely to accept the most heinous form of death. It was the most fragile moment in the life of Christ. However, what was so helplessly fragile and weak was the very foundation of the new institution of love, the Church. The reading of the book helped me to see the glory of God in storms as well as in stars. The God who is clothed in the brilliance of stars is also watchful of the transient lilies of the field and the frail sparrows at the porch of the temple. There can be no reassuring thought for a person than the conviction that he or she is in the hands of a Father who is prodigal in His love. =========================================================== Read More