I came across the quotation above from Thomas Merton a few days ago on the front over of the latest newsletter from John Garratt Publishing. It's had me thinking ever since.

The more I think about it, what Merton is saying there is the key to everything isn't it? At heart, this whole "journey of life" is about "finding peace with God". Not only at every moment in this life but particularly at that "penultimate moment" as we take our last breath. What we all hunger for is "peace in our spirit" — that deep-down sense of total equilibrium with everything and everyone about us.

My own "insightful moment" about all this occurred a few weeks after my own father's death, early in 2006, in those nano-seconds in the middle of a car accident that was entirely my own fault when I ploughed into the back of a line of other cars. I've previously had motor accidents in my life but none as potentially devastating as this. In that split second as I saw the bonnet of my car rising up in front of me, the initial thought was one of immense panic — if this accident didn't wipe out my very life I could picture it wiping me out financially as I didn't have insurance to cover an accident of this magnitude — and then, seemingly miraculously, this profound calm descended on me. I find it still very difficult to describe it in words. I just had this deep sense that "everything was going to be alright". Somehow "good" was going to come out of this seeming disaster. It has.

I wrote about the experience at the time on the old CathNews discussion board. I frequently look back on those posts and the entire experience. Those "nano-seconds" have become for me a sort of metaphor that sums up for me what this entire "life quest" is about. In a sense, it is a long journey in learning how to find that peace, which is ultimately only accessible through the Divine, and to let it percolate, subsume or encompass the whole of our lives — even in moments of profound disquiet and pain.

Some more on the Charles O'Neill story…

“We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.” …Thomas Merton

This time last week I mentioned Stephen Utick's new book "Captain Charles – Engineer of Charity". It is the story of Charles Gordon O'Neill. I've been continuing to read it during the week on the way to preparing a review. Stephen Utick rang me during the week and I was telling him how much the story of O'Neill resonated with me. His life was a contradictory mess of enormous achievement interspersed with moments of enormous loss, financial ruin and all those things that are the very antithesis of "peace". I'm only just coming into the New Zealand part of his story about a third the way through the biography. Stephen tells me I'm just coming into the more interesting parts of the story. Even at the age of 35, around the time he went to New Zealand, the man had been responsible for the design of significant schools, bridges and other public works in Scotland some of which still stand today. He'd also played a leadership role in the management of a whole region of St Vincent de Paul chapters. He'd also been sent bankrupt and it was partly this first bankruptcy which had triggered his decision to try his luck in New Zealand and "start again".

O'Neill went on to rake up significant further achievements in public engineering works in both New Zealand and in Sydney. Perhaps his greatest "public" achievement though is that he was the effective founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia and New Zealand. (It is that acheivement which has ultimately triggered the research needed to bring this book to light.)

The paradox of failure…

The great irony in all this is that the last ten years of O'Neill's life were a disaster. He ended up financially destitute, living in very humble circumstances in the Rocks area of Sydney, possibly worse off than many of those whom his endeavours had ended up helping. His personal story and life was largely forgotten for more than a century before people began to ask questions and try and track down what had happened.

I haven't got to that part of Stephen's book yet, but I really do wonder if the guy found "peace" — that profound sense of equilibrium with God — in the closure of his earthly life? I'll no doubt have more to say when I've finished reading the story. I have a gut sense that the reason why this story is emerging today is that it might have some fairly profound things to say to us collectively. In so many ways today our world has become obsessed with "success". "Abundance Theology" is the name given to much of the "philosophy" or "theology" that lies behind the growth of Protestant fundamentalism: "You too can be 'rich' and 'successful' provided you just follow the script God set out in the Bible!". Charles O'Neill "followed the script" but the outcome was a long, long way from the message one might find from any televangelist or at any of the new fundamentalist mega-churches that are springing up in the landscape. O'Neill's life perhaps points to a different sort of understanding — one more in line with the "failure" that the life of Jesus Christ ended up being prior to his Resurrection.

Click on the image to go to "The Oasis" website – ABC Television

As I mentioned last week, there is a paradox in all of this. We can't begin to believe that if we "strive for failure" — trying to deliberately make ourselves "poor", "humble", a "failure", a "nobody" that that automatically makes us Christ-like. That's a misreading of the Christ story every bit as dangerous and misleading as "abundance theology" is a profound misreading of the Christ story. We all have to strive for "success" but, like Charles O'Neill, or Jesus Christ himself, we also have to be prepared for "failure" and the "death" of our ambitions. The "Way" of Jesus Christ is ultimately not about "success" — nor of "failure" — in this life. I think it is about finding "those things" which are encapsulated in the quote from Thomas Merton at the head and foot of this page. It's about "finding that peace, which ultimately comes only from God", whether we are hob-nobbing around the world as a Prime Minister of a nation or whether we're "kicking shit" like some of the homeless and fatherless and motherless street kids who shared their stories with us the other night in that moving documentary on ABC national television, "Oasis" (You can watch it online HERE). That "peace" is actually as elusive for Prime Ministers of nations as much as it is for street kids although it is extremely difficult to explain that to a person who is homeless and feeling unloved.

BOOK LAUNCH:
Stephen Utick's book "Captain Charles, Engineer of charity – the remarkable like of Charles Gordon O'Neill" is being published by Allen and Unwin. Net royalties from the book will go the St Vincent de Paul Society's work for the homeless in New South Wales and New Zealand. The book will be officially launched on 17th April 2008.

LINKS:
ABC television documentary on Youth Homelessness, "The Oasis" — every night across Australia 22,000 teenagers are homeless — can be viewed at: www.abc.net.au/tv/oasis/about/watch/watchFilm.htm.
The John Garratt Publishing newsletter can be viewed at: www.johngarratt.com.au/current.pdf

Brian Coyne is the editor and publisher of Catholica Australia.

We welcome your thoughts in response to this commentary in our forum.

Brian Coyne can be contacted at: Brian Coyne <editor@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Brian Coyne

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