Another Look at Existential Solitude and the Call to Authentic Humanity

[[Dear Sister, I have struggled with what you wrote about existential solitude. I am not sure I even know how to ask about it I struggled that much! But you said you had an experience of hunger, and it was a hunger for being and meaning. In another place, you said it was a hunger for wholeness. I am not sure what that means. I also don't understand how hunger for those things could lead to an experience of God and your deepest or truest self. Isn't hunger for these things a sign of their absence? You know, I never thought a hermit would have anything to offer me, your life seems so different from mine, but I have become aware that what you write about is exactly what I struggle with every day. Do you think therapists "pathologize" (your term) existential loneliness when it is really just basically human? I thought maybe you were saying that. If that's true, it could help me come to terms with my own experience of loneliness and that would mean you have taught me something I never expected to learn from a hermit. Thank you.]]

Really good questions! Thank you. Before I try to answer you, let me say a little about the most basic definition of God I use. When I speak of God, I recognize that (he) is the ground and source of all being and meaning (everything that exists and is meaningful depends upon something outside itself for these qualities). God is not a being among other beings; (he) is not even the biggest and best being among other beings, some kind of supreme being, for instance. Instead, God is the reality out of which everything that has existence "stands". The word existence literally means to stand up (-istere) out of (ex-) this reality.  God grounds our existence and is its source as well. In the same way, God is the ground and source of meaning. To the extent something has existence and meaning, it is grounded and has its source in God. I also believe that God is the ground and source of personhood, of the truly personal. This means that God is not impersonal despite not being A being. In meaningful existence and personhood, we are grounded and have our origin in God. We are, in the language of theology, contingent, and without God, we would simply cease to be.

With all of that in mind (at least in the back of our minds), let me try to answer your questions. How does hunger for being and meaning, or for wholeness, lead to an experience of God? By definition (as noted above), God is the source and ground of our existence. By itself, that says that our yearning for being and meaning is rooted in the very thing we are hungry for, that is, it is rooted in and points to God, who is the source of eternal or abundant and meaningful life. Wholeness or holiness has to do with being intimately and exhaustively related to God so that being and meaning are gifts from God and represent a share in God's own life.

Think of it this way: if I tell you that I yearn for a glass of ice-cold milk this means two things, 1) I already know what ice-cold milk tastes like and the way it satisfies certain needs and hungers, and 2) some form of void or lack has caused me to want or need that glass of ice-cold milk. There is a lack of something (in this case,the milk) that is experienced as a thirst, hunger, or yearning. When I write about yearning for wholeness or holiness and all that implies, it also points to both the presence of an intimate form of knowing (I know what it means to exist, and I know what it means for my life to be meaningful or purposeful); likewise, I am aware of some lack of these things (I can die; I need more of the life and meaning I already know intimately; I hunger for abundant or eternal life). Since God is the ground and source of all being and meaning, my very hunger for this is an implicit awareness of God's presence in my life, just as my awareness of thirst allows me to become aware of already knowing the nature and power of a glass of ice-cold milk on a hot day. (If that knowing was not there, if there was no such thing as ice-cold milk or I had never felt and tasted it, I could never have become aware of wanting or thirsting for it.)

In a similar way, when I get in touch with that profound yearning for wholeness, I become aware of what I am made for, what I have the potential for, who I am in light of these forms of hunger or yearning. I understand this as also being an awareness of my truest and deepest self, my most authentic identity and foundational humanness.  My sense is that this experience means transcending the ego self and any distorted senses of self or of God we might hold (or be held by!). One journeys to the depths of oneself and discovers both God and oneself in the process. When one embraces this true self, one becomes more whole and holy. One is grasped by God and begins to truly grasp who one is most fundamentally. That is the task of all spirituality, all prayer, and it is explicitly the goal and challenge of monastic and eremitical life.

I did allude to the fact that our society tends to pathologize all loneliness, yes. If we rule God (and perhaps the true self) out of the picture (as all forms of scientism do today), so do we rule out a central explanation for what I, Merton, and others call existential solitude. I am aware today of some really fine therapists whose spirituality (both Christian and Buddhist) allows them to avoid this tragic error, but in the main, it seems to me that the tendency to pathologize any uncomfortable experience, but particularly that of a deep and foundational loneliness and solitude still dominate the fields of psychology and psychotherapy. This means that people are often discouraged from admitting, much less expressing, their experience of existential solitude, or the exemplary nature of a search for God and one's truest identity. In such circumstances, they can even be convinced to medicate themselves against such an experience. This situation in science and therapy can actually contribute to a sense of shame that one experiences loneliness when, in fact, this specific experience of hunger or yearning is evidence of the fact that we are made to be the very image of God in our world.

I hope this makes sense to you. Thanks very much for your comments on my experience and its helpfulness to you. So often we think of the hermit life as a selfish one unless it is redeemed in terms of intercessory prayer. What I have been affirming during the last two months is that the hermit vocation is a truly significant human vocation that illustrates the universality of the call and nature of the solitary journey to God and authentic selfhood.

Followup Comments on Respect for Oneself, Others, and our use of the Internet

[[ Hi Sister O'Neal, what you wrote about the internet and privacy applies to more than hermits. I have wondered about the effect of the internet on everyone's sense of privacy and the way that diminishes our ability to respect ourselves and others. You said something like this in writing about hermits. It's almost as though people don't have a sense of their value anymore. What you wrote about your own "inner journey" recently interested me a lot because you were talking about something very intimate and personal, but you didn't let it all hang out there either. You had a clear reason for saying what you did, and I thought you did it for the sake of your vocation. I also thought that was risky and it made me ask if you were doing the opposite of what you had said you or any hermit should, but in the end, I thought you pulled it off.]]

Hi there, yourself! Thanks for your comments. Yes, I agree with you 100% regarding the internet and privacy issues. Thank you also for commenting on what I call a paradox, namely the need to write about certain deeply personal dimensions of my life while being appropriately discreet and so, without "letting it all hang out there" as you put it! I have done that because I think the inner journey I wrote about is the very heart of the eremitic vocation, and because I think it is only in making that clear that we can finally begin to lay to rest some of the stereotypes associated with the idea of hermits. It also provides a central core of content for those trying to discern and live this vocation or, perhaps, to discern another's eremitic vocation. This would apply to diocesan personnel and other c 603 hermits who might be assisting a diocesan team in accompanying or mentoring candidates or discerning this kind of vocation.

Once the emphasis is put on this kind of journey, many things fall into place in considering a call to this vocation. These include, but are not limited to, distinguishing between anonymity and hiddenness or privacy and hiddenness,  recognizing that physical solitude is not the measure of eremitical life while existential solitude is, recognizing the distinction between praying for others (important) and the deeper journey of prayer a hermit is called to make. (As I have written before, I dislike the appellation "prayer warrior", not because I don't think intercessory prayer is important (it is), or because hermits are not called to do battle with the demonic (they are), but because the term is bellicose and puts the accent on individual things the hermit does rather than on the unifying, meaning-imbuing journey the hermit is called to make.)

As I have said many times, that journey is a profoundly human and humanizing one undertaken not only for the sake of the hermit's own wholeness or sanctity, but for God's sake and the sake of the Church as Christ's own Church. (God wills to be Emmanuel, God with us, and we are committed to God's accomplishment of that will.) This journey is not only a universal one (i.e., every person is called to undertake it in some way appropriate to their state of life), but it is the highest act of charity we can offer God, because it is about providing (under the impulse of the Holy Spirit) the opportunity for God to truly be the God he willls to be for, with, and in us and God's Church. It is also an act of charity for ourselves since this is a profoundly humanizing process and commitment.

When you spoke about the effect of the internet and its potential to diminish our ability to respect ourselves and others I was aware of thinking that the internet tends not only to diminish our ability to respect social boundaries, but as part of this, it also fails to recognize the sacred and inviolable character of the human person. The Christian Scriptures remind us not to cast pearls before swine lest they be trampled underfoot. It seems to me that some of what I have seen on the internet is precisely about doing something very similar. While I don't believe persons are "swine", I do believe that if we put the genuinely holy out there as though it is just another bit of data about ourselves and our world, we invite people to become as swine and trample those sacred pearls underfoot as they root around searching for something more immediately appealing or "tasty". Acting in this way fails to recognize that these realities are deserving of protection and a sort of personal "tabernacling" --- if you can see what I mean. (In Judaism and in the Catholic Church, we reserve the holiest instances of God coming to us in a tabernacle. )

For Catholics, this idea of tabernacling refers primarily to God tabernacling with us and, in a related way, to the reservation of the Eucharist in an appropriate "tabernacle". However, the Church also reminds us that we are each tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, the sacred "places" where God himself abides inviolably. The way we treat our most precious journey with God should reflect the same kind of care we take with the Eucharist. We offer it freely to anyone in need of and truly desiring its nourishment, and at the same time, we take care that it is not profaned. We handle it with real care or devotion, signal in different ways that it is holy, and reverence it appropriately. This protects not only the Eucharist itself, but the person who might be ignorant of its true nature and thus, whether inadvertently or not, profane it and themselves at the same time. Similarly, the very intimate personal inner journey we each make with God as we seek wholeness, healing, and Divine "verification" or "verifying" (i.e., being made true in our "dialogue" with the love and mercy of God) is a sacred journey made by sacred and potentially holy persons; it should be treated that way. Otherwise, everyone involved, even if they are only casual observers, can be demeaned and profaned in the process.

One of the strongest points of division in today's world is between those who fail to regard the dignity of every person versus those who regard some people as having dignity and others, tragically, as less than human. The requirement that we treat each and every person with the same inherent dignity has already been mentioned several times by our new Pope Leo XIV, just as it was a serious refrain in the writings and homilies of Francis, Leo's predecessor. When we fail to truly respect ourselves (and that means failing to see ourselves as and acting as sacred, as imago dei), so too will we fail to respect and denigrate others who are equally sacred and imago dei. The converse is also the case: when we fail to truly regard others as sacred (as imago dei), we will fail to appropriately regard ourselves as sacred (as imago dei). 

This means maintaining boundaries and taking care with what we put up on the internet. In your experience of the internet and in mine as well, we recognize the fascinating quality of some videos, podcasts, or writing, and we are apt to recognize that as we allow ourselves to be captured by these, we have become less than our truest or best selves. When I wrote earlier, I mentioned becoming voyeurs in such a process, despite never having intended this. Those of us who write or put up videos on the internet, especially while representing ourselves (or our Church) as hermits, must observe appropriate boundaries especially assiduously. Doing so means "tabernacling" the inviolable core of ourselves, and opening the doors to that tabernacle reverently and with real care and discretion, not in an elitist way (everyone, not just a limited few, should be able to benefit from our sharing), but in a way which ennobles those privileged to engage with us in this way. 

Does God Love Us Because We are Pathetic?

[[Does God love us because we are pathetic? Would that even be love? I think it might be pity, but it's not love. Someone said they asked God why he loved them and the answer God gave was because they are so pathetic. I can't see that as love, myself. Thanks!]]

Thanks for the question! It reminds me of a question from the NT we will hear this week, namely, "What is man that you are mindful of him?"* I tend to agree with you on this, but I think the statement you are reflecting on raises more questions besides. I don't think God regards anyone in this particular way. My sense is that God sees us as we are, of course, and that means he sees us with all of our potentialities, struggles, accomplishments, failures, etc. He knows us intimately, better than we know ourselves, and he does not see us as pathetic (which is a human judgment) but rather as precious (a function of Divine love and delight). I think that is true whether we have sinned seriously, made terrible mistakes, or whatever. That does not mean that God sugarcoats things, or engages in some sort of denial about us. Rather, he sees the truth of who we are, the entire truth and of course, the deepest truth, and he loves us because we are his own and are made for him. Besides, love is the only thing that can truly call us to become the persons we are made to be.

God, after all, is Love-in-act. That is what and who God is as well as what it means for God to do what God does. I remember once being bothered by this thought because it seemed to me that perhaps God could not do anything BUT love me if he was Love-in-Act. I thought of this as some sort of coercive situation or as though God was limited and unfree in some important sense. It seemed to me that I could not trust such a God or his love if he could do nothing else. Eventually, I worked through the theology of it and realized that this was truly the fullness of Divine Freedom, not a limitation of it. I came to some of this realization because of the narrative in Genesis where human beings choose to know good and evil, that knowing good and evil does not represent knowing more than only knowing good does. 

In this story, the satan suggests that God knows more than these innocents because he "knows" both good and evil, but knowing in the intimate, almost sexual, sense the Scripture uses the term makes knowing both good AND evil a reference to knowing less, and more importantly, it means knowing good less well, less fully and intimately. That is, it implies a divided heart and mind, a heart and mind given over to both good and evil. But God ONLY knows the good in the intimate OT sense of the verb "knows". And God, precisely as God, loves what God knows in such a profound way. This is not a limitation in God; it is the fullness of Divinity and of authentic Freedom. It is the rest of reality that "knows" (not just knows about) both good and evil that is limited and limiting because such reality is always less than it is meant and created to be; it knows God and the whole of God's creation less well than it was made to do.

I would suggest that whatever this person heard about being pathetic, they were not hearing the voice of God. The voice of their own self-understanding, their own lack of self-esteem perhaps, their own woundedness and shame, yes, but not the voice of God.  While I don't think God is blind to evil, I do believe that he does not know it in the way we do --- at least not apart from the Christ Event. He is profoundly aware of the choices we make and the reasons and circumstances driving those choices. Again he knows us far better than we know ourselves. God knows us and that we know evil and God loves us in a way that redeems and frees us from that knowledge. He, quite literally, loves us beyond any evil. The notion that God judges us only in light of our sin or weakness and limitations is a serious theological mistake I believe. 

The Old Testament shows us God renouncing such a way of judging us or our world when it speaks of God's decision never to destroy the world as occurred in the narrative of the great flood. The OT tells the story of God changing his mind, but as in other stories in the OT, this is really a way of revealing a very different God to the hearers of this story than they could have imagined. (It is simpler to reveal a God who supposedly changes his mind than it is to develop the theology of a completely different God out of whole cloth; it is simpler for people to accept as well!)  In the New Testament, the central image of God's judgment seems to me to be that of harvest and this develops OT images like that of gleaning in the book of Ruth, for instance. God sees and summons the good, the true, and the holy out of the ambiguity of sinful existence and calls these to abundant life in himself. Moreover, he does so clearly and inevitably. That is the way of Divine judgment, the way of God's love and mercy.  It demonstrates the way God sees us, precious, full of potential and fruitfulness.

It is also a sacramental way of seeing reality. We Catholic Christians look at ordinary limited and even flawed matter and, because we are part of a highly sacramental and incarnational faith, are capable of seeing the extraordinary nature of the most ordinary reality. We can imagine wheat and grapes becoming bread and wine which in turn can become the very Body and Blood of our Lord. Oil can be used to consecrate, strengthen, and heal us; water can become a means of washing away brokenness and godlessness while initiating us into the very life of God, and a few simple words in absolution or blessing, or a brief Scriptural passage** can raise us to greater wholeness and holiness as they feed some of our very deepest needs. God, in Christ, teaches us to see in this way, and I believe he especially asks us, in the power of the Spirit, to see ourselves this way, as both ordinary and extraordinary and at least potential incarnations of God. Again, we are precious, full of potential and fruitfulness --- or, in the words of Scripture, we are imago dei, the very image of God.

Recently I was told a story about someone concerned about disappointing God. It's a common belief and I have heard (or entertained) the same concern many times. My immediate thought in response was that God could never be disappointed in us, though I thought he could be disappointed FOR us. When I reflected on my experience of that I realized it is because my own experience of God (especially in prayer and in the people who represent God to me) always has God seeing me in terms of deep truth, essential beauty, and indestructible potential. God is not naive. God, like others in my life, "sees everything" but God loves me beyond all of that (which means he both sees me more deeply and loves me into more abundant life). Even more, God continues to love in that way as I come more and more to allow my life to be defined in terms of this love! I continue to believe that God can be disappointed for me, but not in me; I especially can never believe the God I know loves me or any of us because we are pathetic.

*  Hebrews 2:5 

** I am thinking of Rom 8:31-37, but there are innumerable others --- ordinary words made extraordinary in God.

A Contemplative Moment: Morning Prayer

Morning Prayer

by John Philip Newell

In the morning light, O God,

may I glimpse again your image deep within me

the threads of eternal glory

woven into the fabric of every man and woman.

Again may I catch sight of the mystery of the human soul

fashioned in your likeness

deeper than knowing

more enduring than time.

And in glimpsing these threads of light

amidst the weakness and distortions of my life

let me be recalled

to the strength and beauty deep in my soul.

Let me be recalled

to the strength and beauty of your image in every living

soul.

_______________________________________________________

The dignity of the human person is not easy for some to believe in, or even to glimpse, much less to stay attuned to and live in light of. The inner work I do is strongly oriented towards awareness of the presence of God within us as ground and source of all the potentiality we hold uniquely and realize over time. As we abide in God and God abides in us, this incredible revelation of life and divinity at our very core demands our awareness and cultivation if we are to live life as abundantly and authentically as God desires and wills for us. John Philip Newell's prayer captures all of this as it provides an invitation to get in touch with God's call to live the graced integrity we know as imago dei.

Walking Zeroes? On Developing Theologies and Some Thoughts about Humility

A couple of things this last week caused me to think of the way my own theology has evolved over the decades. When I was an undergraduate doing Theology, my major professor had a couple of us do presentations on various topics fairly regularly. Sometimes Toni and I teamed up, and sometimes we opposed one another debate style. (Dear God, though often a great joy, was that ever painful sometimes!!) 

Toni was really creative and she loved using props! Once, after I had given my side of the presentation in the previous session, she came to class ready to begin her side of the argument. She had a huge copy of Denzinger's with her (this reference book lists all the heretical positions the church has ever pronounced on) and began by referring to my position. She opened the Denzinger's, pointed to the page, and, looking at the class, read, [[If anyone should say (my position on Universal salvation) ANATHEMA SIT (or, let [her] be anathema)!!]] Then she snapped the book closed with finality and, looking at me with satisfaction, sat down as if the debate was finished. Professor Dwyer roared with laughter (briefly!), Toni was really pleased with herself (much less briefly), and I was pretty ticked off!! (Have I said how much I loved Toni? We were best friends!!) Anyway, today, I believe even more strongly in, and would argue even more coherently, what is called apokatastasis ton panton --- the redemption of everything, or "universal salvation".

On another day we were presenting something together on the Theology of the Cross (perhaps Paul's theology seen from a Protestant (Lutheran?) perspective). In any case, we wanted to make the point that of ourselves we are nothing at all, while with God (or even from God's perspective), we are of (almost) infinite significance! As I got to the climax of my section, namely, "Without God, we are nothing at all!", Toni unexpectedly whipped out a child's pull toy and set it on the desk in front of us as the class looked on. It was an oversized "O" from the alphabet and it had little moveable feet with a weighted cord attached to the front of the "O". When the weight was dropped over the edge of the desk, the "O" walked the length of it in front of me. Toni explained, "We thought bringing a "walking ZERO" would make the point more memorable!" (She may have said something about ME being a walking ZERO without God, but I honestly can't remember that now -- I did say how much I loved her, right? -- Nevertheless, the point was made and the class "got it"!) On that day John Dwyer also laughed, Toni was pleased with herself, and I too thought the prop and the presentation as a whole were great.

The point we were trying to "walk home" is a really important one. It is central to understanding ourselves and the love of God. Namely, without God, without the grace of God, without the powerful presence of God that summons us into existence and dwells within us, we can be thought of as nothing, and in some ways, it is appropriate to say with Catherine of Sienna that God is ALL and we are nothing. But in other ways, this is simply not true and does a disservice to both God and ourselves. At some points, this truth will not only be unpalatable but pastorally harmful. In particular, it is not a theological truth (nor an anthropological one) we can use to bash folks over the head with because of their supposed "pride". It is one we must use extremely carefully, with appropriate nuance and sensitivity so that folks we say this to truly hear the love, freedom, and promise also embodied in this sentence!!

After all, God never says we are nothing. Jesus never says we are nothing. Instead, they proclaim the delight they take in each of us; they affirm how good God sees us to be and, how incredibly and unconditionally loved we are. And they remind us that we are incomplete without God, less than authentically human without him, incapable of loving as we are called to love without the Love-in-Act that dwells in, summons, and empowers us to love in the same way. When Jesus speaks of being able to do nothing but what he has seen the Father do, when he speaks of the unity between himself and his Abba when he affirms that knowing him means knowing God and seeing him means seeing God, Jesus is proclaiming the very nature of authentic humanity; more, he is indicating that like himself, we are truly human only when we live with and from/of God.

Yes, humility is a very good thing. We all need to be humble and perhaps sometimes it is good to call others to remember who they really are. It is important to recall, however, that humility has to do with being truly grounded --- grounded in the truth of who we really are and, as it said in today's Gospel from John, where we are truly from. To say that we are nothing without God can quickly devolve into an untruth, namely that we are nothing at all!! But that affirmation lacks humility!! It is inadequately grounded in the truth of how God values, loves, and sustains us at every second and how God breathes HIS life and promise into us in the same way. It is untrue to who God creates us as and calls us to become ever more fully. So, are we all "walking zeroes"? Perhaps, without God, we would have to say this. But -- and here is the critical piece of the truth we can never forget -- who among us is really ever (objectively) without God? Who among us is not loved and held as precious, a (potential) daughter or son of God at every moment? Who among us is not called and made in some way to be, at least potentially, a light to the world? 

What do I say about that prop that served an undergraduate presentation in theology so well? It was a good prop for a theological lecture, and in some limited ways, it expressed a profound theological and anthropological truth when used narrowly and carefully, but more generally? No. Humility, a loving truthfulness about who we really are in light of God's love, says something else that focuses on the way God forms, sustains, sees, and delights in us. It has its center in who God creates us to be and the potential we embody. None of us are EVER walking zeroes. Even in our worst failures, we remain God's precious creation. Saying that is not prideful, it is pastoral; it nurtures and empowers abundant life and an authentic humanity that is decidedly not some kind of nothing but the very image and temple of God!! 

More Questions on Inner Work and Becoming Transparent to God

Sister, when you write about stricter separation from the world does the inner work you have been doing have a place in it? As I read your last post entitled, "Why isn't it enough?" I thought I got, just for a moment, a glimpse of why that would be important not only so you could live as a hermit, but also as an integral part of the eremitical life. This glimpse came and went in a flash so I can't say more about what I mean but maybe you know just what I am trying to say here. I know you have been criticized by readers in the past for needing to do such work and that you wrote it was integral to your vocation. I think re-reading your last post helped me understand this a little better because I saw you, and myself, and everyone else as having been distorted by the world and needing to do the inner work you speak of to become more clearly ourselves. That was the glimpse I got while reading what you were saying. I don't know if this is something you could write about, but my question is do I have this right? Does the inner work you speak of allow you to become "transparent to God" (your phrase) as you become more truly yourself?

Thanks for your questions. Yes, I definitely think you got it!!! The post you referred to re criticism of my own engagement in what I call "inner work" is found here: On Justifying Inner Work and it contains other links to related articles. It was also prompted by my discovery that the inner work I had been doing for a couple of years at that point might have shown me I had made a mistake in my discernment of an eremitical vocation; instead it affirmed this vocation again and again. And regarding your second question, YES!!! Absolutely, the inner work is part of what allows me to become transparent to God as I become more truly myself. This transparency to God is the very nature of what it means to be truly human, so the more truly human I become, the more transparent to God. 

We speak about this phenomenon of transparency in a number of ways. The main ones affirm us as imago dei, and incarnations of the Word of God -- especially to the extent we live in light of and through Christ!! I believe the story of Jesus' Transfiguration is a story of his (eventually!!) perceived transparency to God by the chosen disciples. Recently Sister Susan gave me a mirror medallion developed by Richard Rohr. I believe that this too reflected (no pun intended) the notion of becoming transparent to God. It also reminds us that others are, to varying degrees, also transparent to God. The side of the mirror medallion facing one's own heart/self has a symbol of the Trinity on it; it represents the gaze of God and the way God sees us at every moment; the side facing outward is a plain mirror reflecting everything as it is without distortion or judgment. Rohr had experienced the Trinity as a dynamic reality moving through him --- in and out. This experience developed into a practice of receiving beauty and breathing it back out to others. I recognize it as a symbol of transparency to God and to being the imago dei to others, one who sees as God sees and also one who is seen as God sees.

Transparency is something that happens, something we become as more and more we become persons who allow the presence of God to be mediated through and in us. Transparency is a means of revelation, but also of standing truly and honestly as our deepest selves. God seeks to reveal Godself at every moment and mood of our lives and in many ways, we occlude or distort that revelation. Part of all of that "occlusion" comes from our own woundedness and the resulting fear of allowing God (and sometimes, anyone at all) to love us and fill us with God's life and light. Sometimes we have lost so much in trying to be open and trust or love that we cling tightly to the superficial image of who we truly are, even when that "self" is but an echo of who we once were and a shadow of who we are truly called to be. Letting go to allow something so marked by newness, dynamism (change!!), and Mystery, is simply terrifying. And so, when people look at us, they mainly see echoes and shadows, scars, woundedness, and diminishment because that is all we feel free enough to allow ourselves to reveal.

Pope Francis Says Vespers with the
Camaldolese Nuns and Monks in Rome

Sometimes our failure to allow the transparency and revelation God yearns for with each of us comes from other forms of rigidity and arrogance. We believe we know who God is because we were taught about who God is in religion or theology classes. We take refuge in formulae and rituals which at least as easily distance us from the real God as they draw us closer. We have learned these things, sometimes with great effort, and we feel safe with them where the "living God" is more Mysterious and awesome even while he is also intriguing to us (mysterium tremendum et fascinans); they are therefore hard to let go of and can occlude the revelation of the living God we are meant to become. It is the "inner work" I have written about several times now that allows the necessary healing and strengthening of ourselves so that we can live from our deepest potential and love as we are meant to love.

Because God is the source of the potential I am speaking of, and we are the persons who are created as we listen to and respond to that source. We are never ourselves alone (except to the extent we are sinners or impaired by the sin that has touched us) because God is a constituent dimension of who we are. The more truly ourselves we become, the more clearly and truly present God becomes within us. We become more and more transparent to the God who is, as Tillich put the matter, the ground and source of our being. God is not alien to us, nor is God some sort of weird or supernatural parasite within us. When we speak of God dwelling within us, we are speaking of something that is most deeply and truly an essential or fundamental part of ourselves. We cannot be "us" (or even alive at all) without this presence and the opposite is also true: the more we become our truest selves, the clearer and stronger this presence within us becomes. We are truly ourselves, truly holy and truly human when people look at us and see God in everything we are and do. This is what revelation is about and it is what transparency is about. 

The inner work I and others do and that I write about here, allows this to be realized in our lives and all we touch!! It allows us to be healed of all of those forms of woundedness that cripple or otherwise limit us and it opens us to the deepest potential that is ours so that we can live from that for the sake of others. Once I thought of this work as something I could do and finish with so that I could live my vocation as I am called to do. Now I understand that this inner work is part of the "asceticism" or even "penance" that necessarily accompanies my prayer and is essential to my vocation. In other words, I will not finish it -- though I will move through different stages of this work at various times throughout my life; instead, I will continue doing it as a foundational part of my life because in conjunction with prayer, as you say, it is essential to my vocation and does indeed allow me to become transparent to God ---  which is the very meaning of eremitical hiddenness, and the goal of my call to holiness and creation as imago dei.

A Contemplative Moment: Listening to the Word

Listening to the Word

"The Word is very near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart" Nearer even than that, because you yourself are his creative word of love. You know God and can listen to him because you are his image, his icon, because he has mirrored himself in your being and his creative word is even now bringing out that likeness, and giving you to yourself. Your obedient listening to to his word is at its most fundamental in this humble, loving acceptance of yourself  as his word.

The word within you is your own center, your deepest reality and your freedom. It is God's utterance of your name, the name that reveals to you your destiny and meaning and all that you can become, as Jesus spoke Mary Magdalene's name to her in the garden. There is a growing sense of identification between ourselves and this word, and in this we are sharing in our fumbling way, in the experience of Jesus.

He is the Word, yet as man he had to listen, and still does listen, to the Word that he is. His listening was made perfect in his Easter reality where obedience meant only union, freedom, and joy. This is what the gift of the Spirit is, this consciousness of identification with the Word within: this is being a child of God, and we cannot but cry, "Abba!" Like Jesus you have to listen and listen. It will take you all your life to hear the Father's word of love for you; indeed, it will take you all your eternity.

by Sister Maria Boulding, OSB

Stanbrook Abbey, England

in The Coming of God

God Creating Adam -- Chartres

 A friend returned from a trip to France (etc.) with about 32 other Dominicans from various congregations and brought me a picture of this statuary from Chartres Cathedral. It is a favorite of hers and is called God Creates Adam; it is a small piece, only about a foot and a half or two feet high and is located on a Northern portal to the cathedral.

While I had never seen it before, I loved it instantly. It recalls for me so many prayer times when I had the sense of having God's entire attention or of being held securely and loved into wholeness. It speaks to me of the place of God in each of our lives --- even when we fail to realize how inextricably wed our lives are with one another. There is an amazing combination of strength and gentleness, quiet joy and determination, as well as dependence and independence here. God looks completely sure of himself and quietly pleased. Adam --- who looks neither male nor female to me --- looks content and at peace.

I hear an invitation here: "Give yourself over to me; let me make you my very own creation, my very own image and counterpart! Let me truly make you what you are!" --- as God reminds me of the dignity and nature of my original creation and all the potential it holds. There have been times I have not known or remembered that God's creative presence was at work in me calling into existence, healing, molding, shaping, and summoning me into the absolute future of God's own life; there were times when I thought all potential had been spent or was lost forever. Yet I know very well now that this is an image of every day of my life as well as a picture of  the covenant reality I am most truly meant to let myself become. For me it is a wonderful image!!