[[Hi Sister Laurel, I really appreciate what you wrote about suffering but it raised more questions for me. One of these is whether, when you go silent, it means you are suffering and need prayers? Another is whether suffering has taught you anything about the Gospel and, if so, what? My third question is whether you understand suffering as a necessary part of eremitical life (I thought you said that in your last post), and if so, how come? (You wrote about sin and death so maybe you could say more about that.]]
Great follow-ups!! Thanks!! There are three or four reasons I might go silent, and one of these is due to suffering, as it was recently. However, my silence can also be caused by a lack of questions from others that can be used online, and my own other writing projects. When all three of these reasons come together, the silence tends to be longer and more complete. (By the way, I always welcome prayers and also questions for this blog!!!) My fourth reason has to do with the demands of the silence of solitude and inner work. Usually I can continue to blog, but sometimes I must simply withdraw altogether.
Has suffering taught me anything about the Gospel? Absolutely!!! I have to laugh because in my first real meeting with Bishop Vigneron, he asked me about my favorite Saint. It was a good question, meant to start a conversation on the level of heart, and also simply to break the ice for ongoing conversations. As I have told the story in the past, I quickly answered Paul of Tarsus or Paul the Apostle. In my head, though, I was thinking, "Oh no, he probably wanted someone other than an Apostle; I should have referred to John of the Cross or, etc etc." and I quickly followed up with the theology I most love in Paul's writing, viz., the theology of the Cross. I said something like, "If I could spend the rest of my life coming to understand Paul's Theology of the Cross, I would be a happy camper!" Of course, I wasn't saying I wanted to understand this theology on a firsthand basis. I already knew this reality to some extent, but not to the extent I know it now, and I think will be asked to understand it throughout the rest of my life --- precisely as a theologian of the cross and as a hermit.
God has definitely taken me at my word in this matter, so the way I spoke to Bp Vigneron on that day makes me laugh re my own naivete. My own life is marked in a real way by the imprint of the cross, and in a very real way I know aspects of what Jesus suffered during his life as well as on the cross. This has been true throughout most of my life, though I didn't really appreciate it until relatively recently. What is most important in this pattern is the fact that we are made for God and our humanity is meant to mirror Jesus' pattern of humanity where God is Emmanuel in and through him. We are each called to be a revelation of the God who wills to be God With Us, so much so that authentic humanity is transparent to this God and can be identified by the same name. God the Father is Emmanuel, Jesus is the authentic human who is therefore also Emmanuel, and in Christ and the Holy Spirit, we are each called by God to be Emmanuel as well. The deepest questions we pose, the most profound questions we each represent, are questions of meaning and being; that is, they are questions of the source and ground of what it means not only to be, but also to be significant creations of God. The questions we pose and actually are, are existential questions of God and human being. Hermits are called to ask these questions --- to be and to pose them as nakedly, deeply, vividly, truthfully, and poignantly as possible. Suffering, to the extent we can truly set our egos aside, assists in this, and that is part of its grace.
Similarly, we are to be those who allow the answer God is to be received as fully as possible. We are, as authentic human beings, a capacity for God. Hermits witness to this foundational truth, just as they witness to the fact that God is Emmanuel, God With Us. God does not leave us, abandon us, or leave our world without his creative presence. Instead, in each of us the presence of God that Jesus made real (revealed) in space and time continues to be made real in our world. We are called to that in a variety of ways --- some active, some contemplative, some in formal communities, and others in solitude, for instance. I believe the Gospel can be summarized in the one word, "Emmanuel". Similarly, it is most exhaustively made real (that is, it is most fully revealed) on the cross. Almost all of the hermits I know tend to put the cross of Christ right at the center of their own eremitical lives, and that is especially true as they age or mature in eremitism. In my own experience, this is the heart of eremitical life; it is the way we grow in union with God. While sin and death have been defeated by God in Christ, God is not yet all in all. Hermits live in witness both to God's victory and to the fact that there is more to come when God definitively establishes a new heaven and a new earth.
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