accepting His silence

"The Dream" by Michael D. O'Brien, the rider goes out into the darkness, chasing a pinpoint of light, all the while unaware that Holy Ghost keeps careful hold, careful watch, and is illumined in Light.

I pool myself on the table in front of him to try and make him understand, which is silly, because he does. But I have come to think that metered words and breathed prose somehow makes sense of my tangled mess of being, that I have to explain myself aloud, neglecting the power of the sacrament of the unspoken word—things betrayed and conveyed in eyes, in half-nods, in unspoken prayers.

“He’s silent,” it’s more choked than I would have liked, but this is part of the unspoken revelation, too. It’s been this way since September, a feeling that God is abundantly present, a sense of peace in the very core of my soul, and yet no kindling tickle of wings against my heart, against my being, so that I am caught betwixt an absolute certainty and trust that He exists, that He saturates the cosmos, but these truths, this Truth, does not feel present, does not feel true.

And I’m desperate. Eyes betray, convey.

I fear the future. I fear that He has led me into a time of such profound certain uncertainty, that this ground beneath my feet feels so absolutely solid and yet each step forward into darkness feels as if it could be a step off into the abyss.

And I pool. I pool all this in mangled words in front of him and he understands, but I keep talking, because what I’m not saying is that I’m scared and talking about it helps me be less afraid. At least, I think it does. I’m not certain of much apart from Him in this strange land of exile.

We go to the small group, we discuss the Screwtape Letters. We read the letter about silence, about troughs, about how God only trusts His silence to some people, about how God has given a special grace to those who are in the midst of such feeling of absence who, despite it, still obey.

And I cross myself during Compline. I obey.

I put the whole of my being into the motions: blog posts, coffees, laughter, thesis writing, applications. I perform the motions. I greet the morning in prayer and close the evening the same. I obey. I choose the better when I am able, though not as much as I ought. But for the most part, I obey.

But silence. Feeling on occasion, as a surprise in the motions, as a breathless awakening in prayer, but mostly quiet, mostly no murmur against my chest, a Holy Ghost aloof in slumber with no kindling word to stir my breast.

We drive back and I blink away tears and make the casual—though, again, the unspoken truth is that it is prophetic—comment that God’s humor always makes me laugh a bit darkly, that He would break His silence to me about His silence by giving me an indirect word about it. He said it was alright in the words of Lewis. By the words of Lewis. Was it too much to want Him to say it to me?

I meet someone for coffee the next day and I follow a strange prompting and dig into this well of self deep and rend up the waters of this pain. And she tells me she understands, that this has been her, and there are tears as I suggest maybe it speaks something to what God is doing in her, through her, but I cannot leap from the grace I feel compelled to give her to give such grace to myself. Not yet.

We leave and I go to a lecture, I sit beside him and we nearly leave, but something unspoken happens, passes, and we stay. And it’s about writing, about people I love, like Lewis and Simone Weil, who say they were converted in their imaginations long before they were converted in their hearts, that it was writing that did it, that some author somewhere wrote something that, though not explicitly Christian, brought them to the Throne of Grace long before they ever realized it.

And I’m crying ugly, big tears falling like all the broken hallelujah prayers into my lap as I, like O’Connor’s Asbury feel the Holy Ghost descend emblazoned in ice instead of fire and I accept, though it scares me, this terrible gift of silence. I accept that the words will have meaning, even if I cannot see the reason and rhyme here and now. I accept that the reason I feel so acutely the ache of this cosmos has purpose and purpose that is rendered only unto Him. I accept the possibility that this silence may be this lifetime, as I accept, in turn, that it means in strange, brilliant moments I run my hand against the hem of Grace.

Yesterday we entered the season of Advent; we marked the day in which we focus our minds on recalling the first coming of our Lord and look to His return. And I stand here in the breath between Incarnation and Eschaton, with open hands lifted as high as I might bring them today, broken pooled prayers and bric-a-brac uncertainties, looking to the sky and expecting, for this is all I may hold in certainty, that Christ shall come again.

And today, this is enough. I step forward, foot touches dark, and the Light keeps watch overhead.