Lectio
“God, the Lord of nature, does not allow that anything be empty or void. Therefore, stand still and do not waver from your emptiness; for at this time you can turn away, never to turn back again.”
— Meister Eckhart, Sermon 4, in The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart
Meditatio
Contemplative prayer invites us into the darkness. Into the shadows. Into the silence. To face our deepest fear — that we are alone. That, beneath it all, we will find nothing. That when we stop talking, moving, seeking, and striving, there is only silence, absence, and emptiness. That we are unloved.
It asks us to be still. To trust. To put our faith in the self-emptying of Christ. In the death of the false self, the resurrection of the true self, and the ascension of our eternal self in and with him.
It asks us to let go of everything we cling to — our hopes, our fears, and our covetousness — and to enter the deserts of our souls where there is nothing to sustain us but love. Where all that is not love is dried up, scorched into ash, and blown away by the winds of his breath. Where the vastness that once felt threatening, unsafe, and inhospitable envelops us in a deep affection we have never known.
It asks us to sit, to walk, and to breathe in love and only love. To be loved. To be beloved. To be.
And in that being, we come face to face with both our deepest fear and our deepest desire. We find that this emptiness — this darkness, this silence — is the answer to the question we dare not ask. The invitation we are always free to refuse, and the one we most deeply long not to.
Because, when we finally turn to face him under the threat of nothingness, we find that the fear of being alone and unloved and the desire to be beheld and beloved have always been the same.
Oratio
O how I fear
to face you
for fear
of finding only me
and so I run
to distraction
running away
from even me
but as I reach
the bottom
where nothing seems
to comfort me
I turn toward
the darkness
and find you
waiting for me
Contemplatio
Where in your life do you sense that your deepest fear and your deepest desire might be the same thing?
Related Scripture
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” — Jeremiah 1:5 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like An Excess of Presence: On Spiritual Darkness and the Gift of God’s Grace, which explores the apophatic insight that the darkness we feel in prayer may not be God’s absence but an excess of divine presence our senses cannot yet receive — a companion reflection to this post’s invitation to stand still in the emptiness.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply