[[ Sister Laurel, I have never thought about myself as question and God as answer, but it makes sense to me. That's true when we think of people as seeking God. It is true when we think of them lacking something that calls for a particular fulfilling thing too. Can you say more about this and maybe where it comes from in your own experience? Thank you.]]
Thanks for your questions. I would like to say more about human beings as question and God as answer in light of my last post, so I will try to answer your questions as I do that. I hope that's okay. When I finished the piece on Living the Questions, there were a few points I had not developed regarding the relation of question to answer, and I was afraid perhaps my piece was too negative as a result. In particular, I was afraid I had not done justice to the way a question somehow reflects a deep awareness of the answer and anticipates it, even if this anticipation is still inchoate and relatively inarticulate. I think this is true even when we are looking at little ones whose every word is a question, "WHY?", and whose every question represents a quest for (and experience of) personal transcendence. In every "why?" a little one asks (or demands!), we can recognize that they have an inchoate sense of the need for and existence of meaning, relatedness, completeness and incompleteness, reasonableness, and cause and effect. All of these are called for and, to some extent, presupposed by the question, "WHY?"
In transposing my reflection from the little one asking a still-inchoate "why?" to the human being posing the question of themselves and therefore, of God, it is important to see that one seeks God because in some way one already knows God. When we say we are made for God, we point to both our lack and also to a "possession" (to something we have or know) that drives the direction of and provides courage for our seeking. The direction and courage of our seeking God (and the deepest truth of ourselves) will grow over time as our faith grows and we gradually become people of prayer.
(I know I have just thrown two new words into the mix here. Let me clarify those: Most fundamentally, faith is about trust and in terms of this specific discussion, faith has to do with trust (a way of knowing and being known that both depends upon and leads to openness and
therefore, to even greater being known and knowing) that there is an answer to the profound question of being and meaning we ourselves are. Even more, it leads to a growing sense that this answer gives us life and meaning that is beyond this life's limitations and imaginings. Prayer really is about posing the question we are through all of life's exigencies, joys, sufferings, and struggles in a way that trusts, and so, is open to the answer God is and who God makes of us.) We approach this prayer as we ask God our own painful, "Why's?" for instance. We know this kind of prayer as we pour our hearts out to God, and so, as we simply come to stand securely as our truest selves in God's presence.
Personal Sources:
There are two sources for my work here. The first is mainly intellectual and academic. When I was an undergraduate beginning theological studies, I was introduced to the German notion of question. It was explained that a question meant both the lack of something that made the question necessary, and the presence of something that made the question possible. Questions were impossible unless both conditions were met. I was fascinated by this analysis/definition. In my senior year I was assigned Paul Tillich's
Systematic Theology, vol 1-3 for my senior majors' project. There, I was introduced to Tillich's "method of correlation," where (to simplify things significantly) philosophy poses the questions of being and meaning, and Theology articulates the answer (that God is).
Later (during MA work), I studied the work of Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs and was introduced to the idea of "theological linguistics" and the idea of human beings as
"language events". (John Searle's work on performative language was also important here.) At the same time, I was studying Scripture (especially Paul!), which underscored all of this with Jesus as the revelation (articulation in space and time) of the truly human and the truly divine --- the one in whom the Word is made flesh and God is allowed to be Emmanuel in an exhaustive way. During doctoral work, I returned to Paul Tillich's
ST and to a more concentrated reading of the doctoral dissertation written by my undergraduate and Master's professor, John C Dwyer (Tubingen):
Paul Tillich's Theology of the Cross. Everything I have done since remains tied to and grounded in these theological roots.
The second and more important source of my reflections on the human person as a question and God as the corresponding and only sufficient answer, the one for whom we are made, is personal or existential. Various events in my childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood raised the questions of life and death, meaning and meaninglessness, and the possibility and nature of God, with a particular intensity and seriousness. I was seeking God before I knew there was a God to seek! Later, that quest became more focused when, at 14 or 15, I attended my first Mass and had an experience of the Catholic Church as the place where every need (emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual, etc) could be met! I began instruction that week, was later baptized a Catholic, and then entered the Franciscans when I could.
Unfortunately, I developed an adult-onset seizure disorder (epilepsy) and had to leave the Franciscans. This disorder eventually proved to be medically and surgically intractable, and left me disabled. Additionally, the epilepsy co-existed with a chronic pain problem (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, once called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy). In all of this, my own questions led me to understand myself as question, and over time, I understood even more clearly or explicitly that God was the answer I sought, needed, and was made for. In @1984 or 1985, I became a hermit doing some limited writing (mainly in Review for Religious)**, and then, when the diocese was (finally!) open to professing someone under c 603, I became a diocesan (canonical solitary) hermit for the Diocese of Oakland and was perpetually professed and consecrated in 2007.
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Throughout much of this time (from 1983 onwards), the work I have done with my spiritual director has supported, encouraged, and empowered this journey, particularly over the past decade or so. I owe her more thanks than I can say. The academic theology I did as a student was tailored to my personal needs in some ways (I can't thank John Dwyer enough for teaching me Paul's Theology of the Cross, assigning me Paul Tillich in my senior year, and introducing me to the work of Ebeling and Fuchs during my MA studies!!). I say this because some of this was anticipated by writing (poetry and journaling) I did as an adolescent and young adult when, at one point, I came to describe myself as a scream of anguish. I understood at that time that I needed to better understand and articulate what that was all about. More, I knew I was (or was made to be!) a good deal more than that! All of this and more led me to understand the human person not only as a question presupposing and seeking a sufficient answer, but as an inarticulate cry requiring and seeking greater and greater meaningful articulation as a word or language event. The influence of Jesus as the Word made flesh during this early period was undeniable, yet still obscure.
Meanwhile, especially since @ 2007, the time I have spent living and reflecting on c 603 and the nature of the solitary eremitic vocation, coupled with my work with c 603 candidates, and the experience I had at the beginning of last Lent, has drawn all of this and more, together into something of a summary of my own theological-spiritual journey. Other elements of this journey include my deepening love for John of the Cross, my longstanding respect for the writing of Ruth Burrows on Prayer and (more recently, her anthropology and mystical theology -- which I completely resonate with***), the reflections of Carmelites more generally, the friendship and sharing of diocesan hermits like Sisters Anunziata, CH and Rachel Denton, Er Dio, and the writing of various Camaldolese (cf The Privilege of Love) and Cistercian writers, not least, of course, Thomas Merton!! It has been a difficult journey, sometimes fairly dark and often obscure, but above all, it has been a journey sustained by love and illuminated by growing or emerging hope.****
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** This was an important time, and three of the articles I wrote had to do with prayer as something we do for God's own sake (e.g., Prayer, Maintaining a Human Perspective, and That God Might be Father) and Chronic Illness and Disability as Vocation and potentially, an eremitical vocation: (Eremitism: Call to the Chronically Ill and Disabled, 1989).
*** I have to call this providential, but I just discovered that exactly 2 years ago today, Ruth Burrows (Sister Rachel Gregory, OCD) died at the age of 100. She had been a Carmelite nun for 82 years! That said, it would be hard not to consider her role in guiding my reading and prayer, and God's place in encouraging me to consciously note my indebtedness to her on this day of all days!!
**** Ponam in deserto Viam calls the c 603 hermit a "sentinel of hope" (paragraph 13, p 20)
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