I see my life in birds. That relationship that never came to be is a seagull and my intrusive thoughts are crows. The necklace of my faith bears the image of a dove—it’s been in the same place in my room for over a decade, shimmering and tarnishing. And the baseball player who tests that faith—the one whose beliefs about the pandemic hurt me as a person with a chronic illness—is an albatross.
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Over the last few months, I’ve been reading Father James Martin’s book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, pondering the life of Saint Ignatius and the practice of finding God in all things. It’s the sort of practice that becomes more challenging the more you think you’ve mastered it.
You’re woken by a nightmare and give thanks for the glass of water on your nightstand, and you think you’re doing a good job at finding God in all things because you didn’t see your water as ordinary relief but evidence of grace. But can you also find God in the sweat soaking your sheets and the darkness surrounding you? Would you have found Him in the night if your glass had been empty?
Ignatius believed we can find God in our desires, or even in the desire to have a desire, so if we can’t see God in a particular situation or we’re too tired to even look for Him, but we wish those things weren’t true, God is within that wish. I can’t decide if this is beautiful or frustrating. Wouldn’t it be more fulfilling to sense God’s movement than to concede that the desire to sense His movement is, in fact, the movement itself?
It's only human to wish you had a full glass and not have to say, I suppose God is in my desire to find Him in an empty one, and it may be even more human to wish you could throw the glass against the wall. Then, when it shatters, you can throw the broken pieces in the face of anyone who said at least the empty glass gives you something to hold on to. It doesn’t matter if they were right or not.
Ignatius would say God is present even in the desire to break everything apart, and it’s impossible to be so angry or so human that He can no longer find you. Examine your desire to destroy and you’ll often find beneath it a desire to be loved, healed, and redeemed—it’s the pain of those needs not being met that exposes your claws and bares your teeth. Every fallen feather is a prayer—God, save this world.
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I want to find God in The Albatross. It would be better than seeing him as an embodiment of the ableism that often keeps me isolated, better than feeling my face grow numb every time he hits a home run, better than imagining some way I could disempower him so he’d know what it’s like to feel as lost as I do.
But trying to find beauty in him only seems to emphasize what I lack.
There’s something profound about seeing someone flourish, their passionate and skillful movements a reminder that pain is not the only human reality, there is also overwhelming goodness. The priest blesses the bread and wine and The Albatross runs the bases with abandon, and somehow they are both a picture of grace.
But if The Albatross is a picture of grace, it’s a picture I can’t stare at for too long without my prayers turning to curses, because I can’t understand why joy is so evident in him and so elusive to me. He can easily play both games of a double-header; I’m exhausted after taking a shower or putting away laundry. He watched the crowd cheering at the All-Star game; I watched my friends slowly leave when my illness canceled plans. He visits a new city every week; it’s been far too long since I left the house.
I’ve watched him sprint from first to third countless times and he never seems to be out of breath—his strength feels like an injustice. I remember how it felt to see death tolls every time I opened social media and it becomes impossible to think about finding God in The Albatross’ flourishing. Perhaps a better person could. But if I’m a saint, I’m a bitter one.
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The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything suggests applying Ignatius’ contemplative prayer practices not only to your day, but to your whole life, looking for God’s movement in years gone by, noting times of consolation and desolation. It is often easier to realize what God has done for you than to understand what He is doing now.
I wonder if this is the secret to finding God in The Albatross. What if I’m not looking at his life and the ways it contrasts with mine moment by moment, but I look instead to the past and the hope I’ve gained from baseball in general?
I have often felt loved not when someone tells me I’m loved, but when I’m too unwell to leave bed and my baseball team pulls off a satisfying victory. I know I’m only one of a million fans and I doubt God micromanages home runs and double-plays to show grace to me specifically, but it still feels like a reassuring gift.
At the very least, it is grace that ordinary, flawed people simply doing what they love can bring happiness to another ordinary, flawed human. Each day brings new sin and tragedy but it also brings nine innings that have a chance to be something special.
I fell in love with the sport as a kid, before I developed complex strategies for judging players’ morals. It was okay to like a player because he had a funny name, or you liked his walk-up music, or he played really well on your birthday. I probably cheered for people with views I’d now call out as harmful.
It’s possible that, in this moment, there’s a little girl in a hospital room who’s in love with The Albatross. Perhaps his mere existence is enough to give her joy and joy is something she’s in need of. Is God in the fact that this can happen? God sees our paper-thin morality and views it as an opportunity not to condemn but to allow His light to shine through.
And in this is hope. If all we need to do for God to use us is exist, then The Albatross’ steady breath is not proof that life is unfair but a potential element of redemption.
Yet I fear this conclusion is a cop-out—if it could apply to anyone, how am I finding God in the details, in this specific burden, this particular person being who they are? And how far can this conclusion be carried? We can’t justify giving power to those who will use it for harm only because to some they could be a hero and grace cannot be defeated. There are lines that must be drawn, but where do we draw them?
*
Ignatius lived a life of holy detachment. He wasn’t a saint you would find with an albatross around his neck. And indeed, in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the albatross only becomes a burden when killed—how much agony could have been prevented had it simply been allowed to fly, even if it cast a large shadow and its presence brought fear?
I’ve been trying to kill my own albatross by forcing myself to see it as a gift. I’ve been treating Ignatian spirituality like a game I can win—if I can find God in all things, especially the things that hurt me, I will no longer be hurt by them. But the presence of God on earth does not erase all pain but rather exists beside it and within it.
I’ve been disregarding another key aspect of this spirituality—the idea that God meets you where you are. God does not command me to snatch an albatross out of the sky and stare into its eyes until I find Him in them, nor ask me to write an essay on loving my enemies before He’s willing to love me back.
God was already there in my desire to find Him in The Albatross, nevermind the fact that I didn’t succeed. I’ve now decided this is more beautiful than frustrating, but more than that, it’s liberating. I do not have to force myself out of my weakness, bitterness, illness, and pain—I can be incapable of finding goodness in anything and still find God in a desperate, achy longing.
To find God in the darkness, the empty or shattered glass, and the birds that constantly circle your brain, you do not have to explain how or why He is in those things. You simply have to allow everything to be what it is and allow God to be who God is and remember in fits and starts that you are loved.
And so, fatigued and alone, I turn on the television. The Albatross steps up to the plate, takes a deep breath, and locks eyes with the pitcher. Life being what it is, God is in this place.
Jessica Natasha Lawrence is a Canadian writer whose work explores chronic illness, realistic hope, and the beauty and trials of ordinary life. She has published poetry in Tiny Wren Lit and ONE ART: a journal of poetry, flash fiction in 50-Word Stories, and non-fiction in The Clayjar Review, To Write Love on Her Arms, and The NaNoWriMo blog. She can also be found on Instagram and Medium @typewriterbird, or sporadically posting blessings and reflections on faith and disability on her Substack, Dust and Birdsong.
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