FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS
By Guy Yeomans
Spiritual Director, Jesuit and Ignatian Spirituality Australia (JISA)
I lived through what I describe as a “dark night of the soul” in 1991 — a time when both my life and my faith seemed to be imploding. Yet it was there, in the midst of that darkness, that I experienced something unexpected and deeply transformative: a mystical encounter with Christ on the Cross.
Later, when I came across a photograph that symbolised this experience, something in me recognised it instantly. The image mirrored my own inner landscape — scorched, stripped back, yet somehow still alive. I asked artist Simon Walker to paint it, trusting that art could carry the depth of that moment in a way in which words cannot.
Though the original scene was captured in England, it echoes something profoundly familiar to Australians. We have all witnessed those harrowing post-bushfire landscapes: blackened trunks rising from ash, the air still and stunned — until, almost impossibly, a small green shoot appears. That tender defiance of death, that promise of renewal, is always a moment of quiet awe.
This painting, like my story, offers a kind of parable for anyone who has walked through pain and is searching for hope. It reminds us that even the most devastated ground can cradle the beginnings of new life, and that healing often comes to us in humble, surprising ways — green shoots pushing through blackened earth.
Register here for JISA’s upcoming retreat, ‘Beyond Pain – Reframing Hope’, at Peter Canisius House in Pymble NSW on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd May 2026.
Banner image by Matt Palmer, Unsplash.