Editor’s note: Throughout July, we’re hosting 31 Days with St. Ignatius, a month-long celebration of Ignatian spirituality. In addition to the calendar of Ignatian articles found here, posts on dotMagis this month will explore the theme of “Finding God in the Unexpected.”
A landscaping truck-trailer was obstructing the road as I pulled out of my driveway. Taking great care to avoid hitting the mother of all landscaping vehicles, I scraped the passenger side of my car and toppled my roadside mailbox. I bellowed the name from the side of the truck as I marched up my neighbor’s driveway.
I was running late and running hot. The owner stepped forward with a smile, saying, “I am sorry. I only meant to park there for five minutes.”
I replied sharply, “I took out my own mailbox!”
As we walked side by side back to our vehicles, he offered, “Maybe I could get one of my guys to bolt your mailbox back in place.”
That was the moment I recognized God in the form of an olive branch. Surprised, I stopped to turn toward the landscaper, smiled slightly, and said, “I just came in hot, and you came back to me with a kind offer.”
He started to apologize again as we reached the vehicles. He inspected the fallen mailbox while I noticed a deep scratch across my passenger door. “This one is on me,” I conceded. “I am the driver.”
A few hours later, our mailbox was back securely on its perch, and the car door would be fixed eventually. The landscaper’s kind solution disarmed me. How was the driver able to meet my fury with a kind smile, an apology, and an offer to resolve the issue? As I rushed off, I decided to take this incident to my daily Examen. What is God trying to teach me?
That evening, a local inn’s gardens were in full bloom when my husband and I arrived for dinner. Our community had been on the opposite side of the owner’s expansion plans for one year before our community prevailed. The owner knew that we had helped to organize the opposition to his petition for a larger development project. The dispute was over; left unsaid was that the man had greatly improved his existing inn and had been a good neighbor.
The owner’s table was in plain view as we finished dinner. The Holy Spirit was nudging me to go speak to him. What would I say? I was guided out of my chair and turned to my husband. “I am going to speak to him; would you like to come?”
The man rose as we approached and shook our hands. The Holy Spirit supplied my words. The owner was warm, receptive, unhurried, and grateful that we had made the first move. My husband hadn’t realized the importance of our gesture. The awkwardness was gone. The owner had turned the page, and we had too.
When God wants to teach us something, sometimes he puts these scenes in our paths two or three times to show us the way, explained my dear friend, a missionary sister from India, when we met for lunch the next day. What does God want to teach me?
The throughline of these two exchanges with the landscaper and the inn owner is to understand that conflicts are inevitable and to show up as a child of God. I am meant to hold lightly the friction when good people disagree with me, make mistakes and park illegally, or take opposing positions. Conflict is bound to happen, as is the discomfort of discord that feels a bit like desolation. When we approach such conflicts with love, compassion, and the detachment that St. Ignatius taught, we learn to let things go, rise above fear and fury, and make the first move toward unity and friendship.
Today in 31 Days with St. Ignatius, read Walking with Jesus by Brendan McManus, SJ.
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