Presence

ETERNAL SILENCE

I sit in the ocean breeze- gently

cool on a hot summer day.

Sea in the distance – I enjoy

its deep blue. – yellow sand –

green shore grass add to the peace.

I feel a silence – eternal silence –

coming over me – penetrating my center –

still point.  It grasps me –

my breathing adds to the silence.

Silence – I feel is eternal –

comes from eternity.

Like a knock on the door – alerting me -

some one is knocking – divine visitor.

Silence is mysterious – has depth I

cannot fathom – grasp.

I sit in this presence – knowing that

the knock at the door is one of love.

Someone loves me – wants my attention.

So I have to sit in this eternal silence –

leading me – giving me a peace –

fullness that no one can give.

No one else can go so deep – love –

dark – mysterious.

It takes my hand – leading me to a

safe shore – no matter how strong

storm winds blow.

Robert Trabold

                                                   --------------------------------

A GENTLE TOUCH:

‘PRESENCE’ IN THE CONTEMPLATIVE PATH

Robert Trabold

I sleep but my soul wakes.

I hear my beloved who knocks at the door.

Song of Songs, 5:3

            At the heart of the contemplative journey is the sense and realization that a presence has entered our life. Without us necessarily looking for it, we are gently touched by someone.  In the midst of our ordinary life and activities, in a peaceful moment of walking in nature or a visit to a quiet chapel or in other moments of pause, we experience that we are in the presence of another. It comes into our life as a robber in the dark of night unannounced and not sought by us.  Someone touches us at our center. As time goes on and we experience this presence more deeply and frequently, we feel that there is a deep sweetness to this advent and a desire on our part to experience it more. This presence revealing itself in my ordinary life is a mystery and has an uncommon element to it.  It appears at the center of my being, closer to myself than perhaps anyone can be or even closer to myself that I am.  On the other hand, despite this immanence, I cannot grasp this presence; there is an aura of mystery to it and it is something ineffable.

           

Contemplatives and mystics through the ages have written about this presence at the human center.  They are overwhelmed by it at the depth to their person and find with time that their whole life revolves around it. John of the Cross states this well in the opening lines of his poem, ‘The Flame of Love’

O living flame of love

That so tenderly wounds

My soul at its deepest center:

 It is a personal reality who is calling the contemplative to friendship.  We realize also that this presence has taken the initiative to reveal itself to us.  We did not look for it but in its own mysterious way, it has made its appearance.  It has touched us in the deepest spiritual sense. In experiencing this presence, mystics are living at the center of all religion, that is, in the mystery of the absolute reality and its being the true root of all human experience.  It is a reality transcendent to us and to the other things in the world but also immanent to us. The question of who God is and who we are become related because this presence is at our center. We cannot answer the question of our identity if we do not take into account this presence at our center and its call to us.

           

If we quietly listen to this call, we see that we are being wooed by the Lord. He is at the center of our person loving us and wanting us to love in return.  As Julian of Norwich so beautifully said, “God loves us and delights to be in our presence, He wants us to love Him and delight to be in His presence, and all is well.” John of the Cross states the same in his poem ‘The Flame of Love’

In my heart where you secretly dwell

With your delightful breath

In glory and good will,

How soothingly do you woo me!

If we reflect on this verse, it stuns us that the divine is wooing us in our contemplation to meet in silence and darkness so that it can entice us to love in return.  The Lord reveals Himself to us and calls us to enter into the rapture of His love. As time goes on, we realize that we are no longer the center of our life with its desires and the importance of our ego; our life now is centered on God and we are subject to Him/Her. We realize that we cannot become our true self and grow into our true depth if we do not give ourselves to this presence. This whole relationship with the presence of God within us is a difficult one because we can never grasp the transcendent.  It is always beyond us. The mystics rightly say that we can know and experience God only in silence and in the night. The center of our life and the question of our identity are related to God whom we can never grasp but whom we can only desire.  As time goes on, the question of desiring the Lord becomes paramount in our lives because that is how we can touch Him.

            The advent of the presence of God in our contemplative path sets up conflicts within us.  First, the Lord calls us to change and struggle against our selfishness and pride things also afflicting all humans.  It is a hard struggle and one lasting all our life. Secondly, as the divine presence grows to dominate more of our life, we lose our taste and liking for many things of life, such as, our work, hobbies, art, etc, and look forward to being in the quiet and silence of this presence. Thirdly, the traditional ways of our praying with many words and thoughts give way to a prayer where we quietly sit in the Lord’s presence with no words. We are just there.  This is a big change and it will time for us to get used to it.  Also, we may lose our liking and interest in the more ritual and ceremonial aspects of religion and find that our religious and prayer life is centered on the quiet experiencing of His presence to us. All the above three changes impact on us and change our life as we grow in our contemplative path.

            In sum, this immediate but obscure experience of God’s presence in our life is the center of contemplative and mystical paths.  This is what we are called to and how the Lord calls and reveals Himself to us. It is something we did not ask for but came into our life.  Many of the mystics refer to metaphor of the spiritual sense of touch to describe this advent in our life. St. John of the Cross in his poem ‘The Flame of Love’ speaks of it as

‘a gentle touch.’ The touch is there and real but it also a mysterious one because God is transcendent and ineffable to us. This touch sets up within us a desire for the divine as we want to enter more into this mystery and presence.  The first two lines of the poem “The Dark Night” of John of the Cross sum up this desire.

On a dark night,

Afflicted and aflame with love.

            As a deer yearns for running water, so my soul thirsts for you, O Lord.

                                                                                                Psalm  42