Thursday, October 2, 2008

riches in the wasteland. . .

Your weary eyes expose the piercing ache in your soul and the silent grappling beneath your skin. I see. I hear. . . though your struggle is too deep and obscure to articulate. His call reverberated within you and a tremor of hope surged through your being. You heeded his voice. You cried out in surrender and expectancy overtook your senses, yet in a moment and without warning the darkness of night was unleashed in your interior swallowing the light and paralyzing your pursuit. His voice continues to echo. You cannot escape it. You don’t want to escape it. You’ve been wide-eyed and expectant, but you can’t see. You can’t find him anymore. You ache to feel his breath on your neck. . . for the slightest reassurance that he is near and has not forgotten the whisper of yesterday. You crave his closeness, his activity. . . his revelatory wind.

My lover, my friend, I proclaim to you- peace lies in the heart of this darkness. Still your restless soul, settle into the silence of naked truth and breathe. Do not close your weary eyes in the midst of this perplexing night. . . The “will of God” surrounds you here, and soon, yes- very soon, his riches will surface in this wasteland. . .

1 comment:

Ardor Awakening said...

Your patience, my love, has astounded me as I struggle to enter into the abiding rest that God offers. Your words consistently breathe calm into lungs so prone to panic gasps. I feel summoned to an existence of deep and unwavering peace, but it seems to be a realm that hasn’t granted an easy admittance. Though the deepest utterance of my spirit reiterates that the will of God is to be trusted, I don’t easily settle into these periods of such vague and formless unrest. The swelling and ebbing flow of shadows causes my instincts to initiate a frenzied search for escape, rather than settling into a resolved and patient peace. But I sense His promise to wake within me, even in the reverberating hours of darkness. Though it doesn’t immediately discharge me from my environment, it helps my eyes readjust to their surroundings.
This is where liberation lies, not in the escape, but in the awakening.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Psalm 130:5-6

“And it is the deepest darkness that we most fully possess God on earth; because it is then that our minds are most truly liberated from the weak, created lights that are darkness in comparison to Him; it is then that we are filled with His infinite Light which seems pure darkness to our reason. In this greatest perfection of our faith the infinite God Himself becomes the Light of the darkened soul and possesses it entirely with His Truth. And at this inexplicable moment the deepest night becomes day and faith turns into understanding.”
– Merton