A Disturbed Life
By Ana Mullan
(From the April - June 2020 issue of VOX.)
I love flowers and their colours. They bring joy and they can make a dinner table look really special. We live in an apartment in the centre of Dublin. We have a balcony and my husband is the one who looks after the plants because, sadly, I tend to practice euthanasia on them. In our own gardens or balconies, we can decide which ones to plant where, we can combine the colours that we want.
However, there are flowers that grow and give beauty with very little human intervention. One of my favourite flowers is the poppy - not the ones that you can plant but the ones that we just happen to find here or there.
One thing I learned about wild poppies is that they grow where the ground has been disturbed. When you pass road works, you may see a few poppies sticking out among the soil and gravel that lies all over the place, challenging the ugliness of the surroundings. They make you forget about the messiness of the place, at least they do for me!
I have been thinking about disturbances in life - the times when the soil has been disturbed because of different circumstances - and what that has produced in me. Our western society does not like disturbances. We are constantly pushed to think that we “deserve” a life without them.
Disturbances come in different forms. Our apartment faces Smithfield Square so we get a bit of disturbance as people come and go, but nothing dramatic. When my granddaughters come, there is a disturbance that is enjoyable: toys everywhere, food that falls on the floor, etc. But there are other disturbances that have taken me to deeper places within myself and my relationship with God.
Our move from Cork to Dublin was not as easy as we thought. I can honestly say that the first eight years were very difficult because we were not moving on our own but with three children, two of them teenagers and one of them was extremely unhappy.
Then my adoptive mother died and hidden secrets surfaced. This affected me as well as our marriage and family life. The soil was being turned over and over again. Out of this period I learned and experienced the profound love that God has for me.
But the two events that made me realise that I am just a finite human being and that God is still a mystery, were two unexpected deaths. Six years ago my son rang to say that his best friend had been killed in a road accident. A woman suffering from Alzheimer’s hit him while driving the wrong direction on the motorway. He died instantly. He was a beautiful 28-year-old young man and the only child of his parents.
Prayers and words would not come out from my mouth. I decided to read parts of the book of Job in a loud voice, as a play. I came to the same conclusion as Job, I only know in part.
Nine months later we received another phone call from the daughter of our friends and neighbours, asking us to go to the hospital because her dad had had a heart attack. We arrived thinking that we were going to see Peter resting in a ward. Instead, we were approached by a Garda and were taken to a room where we found his wife and daughter crying, a priest and another Garda with them. Peter was in the other room - the life was gone from him. He had collapsed in the street just around the corner from us. He was 57 years old.
“I learned that only God can fully understand that amount of pain.”
For the next two weeks our apartment became the place of refuge. Along with others, we became their family until their immediate family was able to come. The soil had been turned over for my friend, in a very dramatic and painful way. I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t make things better for her and that brought its own pain. I learned that only God can fully understand that amount of pain.
I am sure that as you read this, you can add your own times when your ground was disturbed. We all have these stories to tell.
Reflecting on this made me become aware that I follow somebody who suffered a lot of disturbances and also brought disturbances to others. He modelled for us how to live when the ground is disturbed, when people misunderstand you or treat you unjustly, when friends let you down or you suffer excruciating physical pain. And when you feel that even God has forgotten you.
“Life in general is more like the messy soil of the road works or building sites with poppies growing here and there, than the tidy garden.”
But He also caused the disturbance of religious leaders, of the political powers and of His own followers who expected Him to act and be the leader that He was not. And He disturbed the greatest enemy of all by dying and coming back to life. The ground was disturbed and produced the greatest event of all: victory over death. That seed continues to flower, as men and women intentionally choose to live on a daily basis in the reality of His resurrection.
Life in general is more like the messy soil of the road works or building sites with poppies growing here and there, rather than the tidy garden. We would like to decide where the flowers should grow but it is not always the case. It is in that disturbance of the soil, of our own hearts, that work is done in us by the one who said: “In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” John 16:33 (MSG)
Ana Mullan is from Argentina but has lived in Ireland for 35 years, the last 18 in Dublin. She is an artist, a spiritual director, retreat facilitator and an enthusiastic grandmother.
