Lectio
“For the more that we soar upwards the more our language becomes restricted to the compass of purely intellectual conceptions, even as in the present instance plunging into the Darkness which is above the intellect we shall find ourselves reduced not merely to brevity of speech but even to absolute dumbness both of speech and thought.”
— Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology,
Meditatio
Silent prayer is something we are called to, not something we simply decide to do on our own. It is an invitation into a foreign wilderness that we find ourselves mysteriously drawn to, often in spite of our opinions, beliefs, and prejudices. And although we may meet guides along the way — those who have been where we are headed and who continue to return — silent prayer is a place into which we must ultimately travel alone, a place of utter solitude where all words, descriptions, and categories fall away.
Whatever God is, He exists beyond our ability to create Him or even describe Him. Whoever we believe God to be, however we define Him, is nothing but a shadow projected there by His Light, falling across walls we have created in the very shape of the one standing in its way. And so the only honest response to a shadow cast in our own image is not another attempt to contain its likeness — but to stop standing where we are standing. To bow down. To fall silent, until there is nothing left of us to block the Light.
At first, when we are called to this silence, drawn by a whisper in our hearts, we perceive it only as Darkness, as abandonment or forsakenness, and it might frighten us. But this is not because the Light is absent — it is because we do not yet have eyes able to look directly at God’s luminous face. And so we are not led toward understanding, but past it — drawn deeper into a silence that does not resolve into sight, but into a not-knowing that is itself the nearest we come to Him.
Oratio
Edge of the Mountain
in the silence
in the whispers
on the edge of the mountain
when all of the storms have passed
the earth has settled
the fires have died out
I remain
not alone
staring into the abyss
with no words
for Your face
nor the desire
to speak
Contemplatio
Whatever you have tried to make God into, you can set it down now. You are not alone in this silence, even where there are no words left to speak. Let the not-knowing hold you a while longer. Sit in the stillness, and let Him move as He wills.
Related Scripture
“He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like The Brimming Fullness: Guardini and the Eternity Deep Within Us (Lectio Divina), which turns from the light we mistake for our own making toward the gift we so easily mistake for the Giver himself.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply