Consolation

I've been living in the netherworld lately. Neither here nor there, pretty much not anywhere.

Lots of uncertainty and that bugs me. I'm not an uncertain person. I think and I conclude and I act. But there's no solid ground these days. My plans have been thwarted left and right, replaced by new plans, and then those change, and still nothing is decided. Even my thoughts have all been half-baked lately. I just can't figure it out. The only respite I find is when I mob over to the prayer chapel and admit to God that the words just aren't there. They aren't sufficient. My prayers begin, "Oh, Father..." and even my mind simply babbles something like, "I'm tired...don't understand...how?...thank you for...I can't begin...what will happen?...am I beginning or ending?...what now?..." etc. etc. until I just say, "God, you know my heart. Accept my silence." It's a profoundly humble feeling.

But still, I don't like the constant wandering. Lewis talked of it in A Grief Observed. He called it "empty successiveness," "a permanently provisional feeling," like my life is just something temporary, waiting to be traded in for the real thing.

Jars of Clay: "You know who you are and you know what you want. I've been where you're going and it's not that far. It's too far to walk, but you don't have to run. You'll get there in time."

Obviously I'm not the only wanderer.

Hebrews chapter 11 pt. one (summary): lots of men and women of great faith were wanderers, too. They had no city to call home. They were exiles.

I think I'm an exile.

Lewis wrote about a certain sense of unbelonging in the Horse and His Boy, my (probable) favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia. "We were made for something greater." I've always resonated with Shasta. "What about all my troubles?" Oh, yes. Haha, my troubles. "'Who are you??' the boy asked. 'Myself. Myself. Myself.'"

Hebrews chapter 11 pt. two: The people who were exiles lived in anticipation of a better world instead of looking constantly backwards. Like Shasta, they were made for something greater.

"God was not ashamed to be called their God,
for he has prepared for them a city."

That's consolation if I've ever heard it.

Superfluity

And when words are not enough? What then? What comes when our words are neither sufficient nor necessary, when they litter the world and have no meaning?

God is silent too, sometimes. He knows that what we try to say is not what needs to be said. Our answer cannot be fitted so that it may be expressed in syllables, vowels, and consonants. Sometimes we can only acknowledge that silence is the best we can muster.

(Forgive my repetition; I know I've included some of these before, but they are more than worth sharing once again.)

“If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of our modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were spoken in our world, it could not be heard, for there is too much noise. Therefore, create silence.” – Kierkegaard

“Have you noticed this about him…that he has done so much and said so very little? …The man has not spoken for hours; and yet he has been speaking all the time…He wants to express himself, not with his tongue, but with his arms and lets—with my body I thee worship, as it says in the marriage service. I begin to understand…why the mutes at a funeral were mute. I see why the mummers were mum. They meant something.” - Manalive, G.K. Chesterton

“My Lord Jesus, I find it difficult to talk to You. What can I say? I who have turned away from You so often in indifference. I have been a stranger to prayer and undeserving of Your friendship and Your love.” – Thomas á Becket

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ...Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” – Romans 8:31-34

“But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?" Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above." – John 19:10-11

“I say, therefore, that there is no creature (toad, scorpion, or serpent) so noxious as the gods. Let them answer my charge if they can. It may well be that, instead of answering, they’ll strike me mad or leprous or turn me into beast, bird, or tree. But will not all the world then know (and the gods will know it knows) that this is because they have no answer?” - Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis

“But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, "Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?" But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.” – Matthew 27:12-14

“There was silence in the dark assembly long enough for me to have read my book out again. At last the judge spoke. “Are you answered?” he said. “Yes,” said I.”
The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered… I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean?” - Till We Have Faces

“And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions.” – Matthew 22:46

“When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "no answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand.” - A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

“I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.” - Till We Have Faces

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” – Isaiah 53:7

Lewis speaks what my heart feels. Yes.

Most recent favorite book: A Grief Observed. This book has contributed to an out-of-self experience I've had over the last two days. Overwhelming...and ultimately very powerful.

Without going into the grimy and incriminating details, I've experienced something very much like the death of a dear friend. I picked up A Grief Observed accidentally almost, because another book I have references it in several places. I only happened to have it with me when I was struck with grief over the loss of my friend.

I was shocked at how closely it described my own experience. The emotion, the physical pain, the anxiety, the anger, the fear... I felt it intensely. More than anything, I had to come to terms with how I would respond to this loss. What do you do when you lose someone you love? How do you respond? Do you "get over it," rationalize your emotions and move on with your life? Can you ever return to the happiness that you once had, whether with your friend or before the two of you ever met? How can you return to that kind of happiness after knowing how much a truly special person impacts your life? It's naive to think that anyone can do that.

Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left? You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared. I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the amputation. I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one.

I wrote something before all of this that became more real to me after it actually happened. "Whether you are near to me for the rest of my life or this is the last time I say goodbye, I thank God for you." Before my period of grieving, I though I meant these words; but I only meant them half-heartedly. I knew that I could thank God for how my friend impacted me while were together, but part of me would eternally resent that we were ever separated. But no. Now I know fully--I can and will thank God for the continued influence and impact of my friend's life.

I wrote the other night that bereavement is not the truncation of married love, but one of its phases... What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase, too. If it hurts (and it certainly will) we accept the pains as a necessary part of this phase....We were one flesh. Now that it has been cut in two, we don't want to pretend that it is whole and complete. We will still be married, still in love. therefore we shall still ache. But we are not at all--if we understand ourselves--seeking the aches for their own sake. The less of them the better, so long as the marriage is preserved. And the more joy there can be in the marriage between dead and living, the better.

But I don't just want to remember my image of my friend. No, there was so much more that I can't capture in simple and happy memories or in a collection of photographs.

Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage--is it not in some ways an advantage--that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me?

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want H., not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle.

And finally, I learned so much about God in this brief and miraculous time of grief.

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "no answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand."

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask--half our great theological and metaphysical problems--are like that....

"They say these things are sent to try us..." But of course one must take "sent to try us" the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't... Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs. But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment. Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out. Rather, your grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a "spiritual animal." To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, "Now get on with it. Become a god."