Not far from where I grew up was a legendary doughnut shop that attracted a great deal of customers. They would open at 5 a.m. and nearly sell out within the first hour. People even started lining up at midnight to make sure they got their doughy concoction. I have to admit that I ate my share of doughnuts over the years, and they were pretty good. However, I am not sure that they were that much better than others. What mattered, though, was that they were believed to be the best. When interviewed, their manager once said these are the best — and perception becomes reality.

In our spiritual lives, there is something similar about perception. We may often wish for different circumstances, situations, friendships or even assignments, but those feelings usually leave us unfulfilled or perhaps wistfully stuck thinking about what once was. God is present in everything. We simply have to perceive that. Otherwise, we miss out on what he is inviting us to in the present.

We had a group of students who recently graduated from our eighth grade. They could not have been more excited to get out of school, and especially to leave our campus, promising that they would not return. By late August though, several of them were back in tears.

“We miss it here,” they said to me. “High school is hard, we don’t have friends, and these teachers were so nice to us!”

Although it did not meet with immediate success, I had to remind them that God has something better for them. Also, some free cookies from the cafeteria helped lighten the mood slightly.

I came across a reflection once from a Carmelite nun, Sister Ruth Burrows, that speaks well to this. She writes: “Our fantasy can take us into excitements, delights, satisfactions. Faith keeps us in the here and now: in this moment and no other. … What a test of faith in this daily round, this pressure of seeming trivialities! What a test of faith in the dull, wearing pain, lacking all glamour and grandeur!”

I remember once taking my godchildren out for the day. We went to a carnival, a baseball game and then for ice cream. As we headed home, I asked them what their favorite part of the day was. “Was it the carnival rides?”

“No,” they replied.

“Well, how about the game?” I asked.

Again, they shook their head no.

“I hope it was the ice cream.”

“No,” they said, “we really do not like ice cream all that much.”

By this point, I felt like a failure. An entire day ruined, I thought, and all I have to show for it is fatigue, bankruptcy and sore feet!

“The best part,” the oldest one told me, “is that we got to spend the day together; that was more fun than anything!” She was able to see what was truly of value, while I focused on the inconsequential.

The saints have long been a source of inspiration, because they never failed to perceive God in their lives, even when their lives were not so saintly. A student in our religious education program did a report on St. Margaret of Cortona that caught my eye. St. Margaret, prior to her conversion, lived as a mistress to a wealthy man who refused to marry her. She even bore him a child out of wedlock, which was a major scandal. When her lover died, she became repentant and, after much prayer and sacrifice, went on to serve the poor as a Franciscan.

When I asked the student why she chose her, the reply pleasantly surprised me. “She didn’t let other people’s perception of her bother her. Instead, she was able to see herself how God saw her.”

The more that we are able to perceive God in our lives, the more we too can find peace and joy. In the course of ministry, we can either see things as burdens and obstacles, or as ways to encounter God’s love for us.

I am still not sure that those doughnuts are the best, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. May we truly be perceptive to God at every moment, so that we may daily encounter God’s will for us. 

FATHER MICHAEL ACKERMAN is the pastor at Resurrection Parish, Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and chaplain at Seton LaSalle Catholic High School in Pittsburgh.