“When a deep silence covered all things and night was in the middle of its course, your all-powerful Word, O Holy One, leapt from heaven’s royal throne’ (Wis 18:14-15).
These are the sacred nights and days. Now is the moment that darkness is pierced by all-creating Light. Now begins the dance of the soul, the poem of the cosmos, the song of universal being. We are in the seasonal celebration of Eternal Being made manifest, of the Eternal Word made flesh, made blood and bone. This is the inner experience of the dark world, of the fragile human, when Divine Light suffuses the darkness, and leaps through our unknowing as the Word of life and truth, the Word that cannot be spoken but only lived.
John and I call 2015 the Year-of-Things-Falling-Apart. The siding on our house fell apart, the deck fell apart, the neighborhood seemed to fall apart when the marijuana growers moved in next door and across the road. Our quiet fell apart for three months as construction workers occupied our living space. The freezer fell apart, and so did the heater/air conditioner--all of it needing to be replaced. Beloved friends and family members became ill, some passed into eternity and our hearts fell apart for a time. All of this plus the earth herself, and the worlds we have established upon her, suffering from environmental illness and human wars and the increased spread of terror. Night surely seemed in the middle of its course.
This afternoon, two days into 2016, John and I sit reading in the stillness of this mountain home. Sunlight suffuses the mossy green branches of the oaks in the back yard and reflects off the snow on Woodrat Mountain to the north. John's deep into deCaussade's classic on the sacrament of the present moment, and I'm studying Brueggemann's work on prophetic imagination that has me making associations with the upcoming national election. For a while he was reading a line from his book to me, followed by my reading a line from my book to him. Strange how that worked: it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that living in the Now results in prophetic action. I'm reminded of Eliot's line, "Where shall the word be found? Where shall the word resound?" He answers himself: "Not here. There is not enough silence."
Ah. And where is silence? It must be...Yes...I remember now...it's in the moment. Prior to the questions. That is where the silence is. That is the 'where' from which the Eternal Word leaps. That is the moment before the crying out, before the chaos enters. That is the moment of pure being, the moment of truth, the prophetic moment in which the New is possible -- the new step, the new idea, the new choice, the new awareness, the New Year.
This afternoon, two days into 2016, John and I sit reading in the stillness of this mountain home. Sunlight suffuses the mossy green branches of the oaks in the back yard and reflects off the snow on Woodrat Mountain to the north. John's deep into deCaussade's classic on the sacrament of the present moment, and I'm studying Brueggemann's work on prophetic imagination that has me making associations with the upcoming national election. For a while he was reading a line from his book to me, followed by my reading a line from my book to him. Strange how that worked: it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that living in the Now results in prophetic action. I'm reminded of Eliot's line, "Where shall the word be found? Where shall the word resound?" He answers himself: "Not here. There is not enough silence."
Ah. And where is silence? It must be...Yes...I remember now...it's in the moment. Prior to the questions. That is where the silence is. That is the 'where' from which the Eternal Word leaps. That is the moment before the crying out, before the chaos enters. That is the moment of pure being, the moment of truth, the prophetic moment in which the New is possible -- the new step, the new idea, the new choice, the new awareness, the New Year.
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