I am not entirely sure what the Lord is up to right now. As I talk to friends on this journey I hardly know what to say anymore. The Lord is still silent giving me only drips occasionally for course corrections. Everything in scripture has stayed the same -- scripture and prayer just fall flat. So as I talk with friends what I mostly say is that I am bored ... bc all the things I like to do - study, pour over scripture, pray, mentor etc ... just don't work right now. So I'm filling up way too much time with TV and a whole lot of nothings that feel like a whole lot of nothing.
The one bright spot is my spiritual disciplines night once a month. I wish it was more often but so far this is what the Lord has for me to do. And it has been so awesome to see the ladies responding and asking deeper questions of themselves and wanting to dig in. They gave me a gift for my birthday -- a beautiful plate with my favorite verse painted along the edges. And at the end of the night -- one woman asked if I would consider leading them on a retreat. So that was super encouraging. Its funny tho bc even though they all sense the Spirit during these times -- I still barely can. I can't really tell if what I am saying is being received or falling flat... or if the Spirit is in it all, except in rare moments.
Regardless -- there are those rare moments for even me. This last week I lead Lectio on the passage of Jesus at age 12 in the temple in Luke 2. The ladies had some lively discussion and we were having a good time. In the first reading, my word or phrase - was 'great distress' and then it was 'found favor with God and men' so in the second reading which is where you imagine yourself in the story, I stood in Jesus' perspective. I saw Mary finally find me after 3 days in great distress ... her jaw agape at finding me in the temple. My response was - 'where else would I be? This is where I have to be. This is where my Father is,' i was kind and totally dumbfounded that she would not understand this about me. Then in the 3rd reading - the response - the Lord showed me a phrase in-between my other 2 in the text. It was in-between 'great distress' and 'found favor with God and man,' it was 'submissive.' The Lord whispered in that moment 'if you will stop banging on my door in great distress ... and if you want that favor ... then you will see that you need to be submissive.' And I knew just what I needed to be submissive to - THE SILENCE. I have yet to figure out how to walk into the silence and be ok with whatever comes or whatever does NOT come. The latter being the really big problem for me. I have spent a lot of time banging on God's door making a fuss in great distress ... but I haven't really spent much time submitting to that silence, and just let myself sit in it. The time waste, the boredom, the not being met thing, still just makes the whole thing so unappealing -- and quite frankly -- just plain scary.
I'm reading a new book ... and man is it excellent. Merton's Palace of Nowhere by James Finley. So far I'm only a few chapters in and my mind is blown. So many things are just beginning to make sense about my silence as a result of reading. I don't even think I can articulate it yet. Here's the quote that's blowing my mind right now...
'By means of silence and solitude we journey into ourselves. We roam about into even deeper and darker and more unknown realms of the human heart, wherein is found the door thru which the Adam in us walked in giving birth to the false self. How can we find this door? How are we to open it? More mysterious still is the question of who will be left when the self we think ourselves to be walks through it?'
I realized as I read this quote that this is the journey that God has had me on in the dark night - purging the false self. Everything that I thought made me who I am - I gave over to God. But what I was really giving up were all the things that helped make me false - shame being the number one culprit. I surrendered everything - even down to surrendering my very senses. And I had to give them up because I was using them wrongly. My false self had so corrupted everything that even my way of taking in the world - my very perception was damaged. Now in this very slow painstaking process which is the aftermath of the time of purging, The Lord is rebuilding me. He is teaching me new things VERY slowly, still amongst a lot of silence -- trying to help me see my own wonder within me -- because what He wants to unveil is my true self. But you can't unveil what is the true me without going thru the old me ... because the 'me' that is on top is the false one.
I didn't have to find the door like Merton said ... God pointed to it and said there it is -- are you willing? And silly me said 'yes' and jumped down the rabbit hole of my shame and entered into a place of such horror within that I could never even fully describe. And I wept for my old self as large chunks of it fell off and died, I just didn't know what I was weeping for! Now God is trying to show me how to discover the true me - the real me - the me made in the image of God - by submitting to silence ... and it feels like a whole other kind of rabbit hole. I have to say it doesn't scare me any less ... because just like Merton said above -- what will emerge on the other side? -- when I come back out? That total transformation -- that caterpillar to butterfly -- total remake has got to hurt -- has got to be so unknown -- and thus it scares the shit out of me.
Lord - I so totally want to submit ... This is what I have been praying for ... I just didn't know that THIS is what I was praying for ... ya know?
