SILENCE – WOODS
Kilmarnock, Va.
Robert Trabold
What a trip – hundreds of miles –
visiting a cousin, then poets’ workshop.
Turning of the wheels still
resonate
within me. At last, no more endless
driving – two days of peace –
silence – meditation.
Quiet – stunning spot – water
Chesapeake Bay. Air is still –
even
gentle breeze is silent. Rich green pine
trees – those of Cézanne
stand at attention – do not move
enchanted by the sunshine –
silence.
Such is our life – endless
running around -
life in the big city. Many things
to do –
hopefully good. But like the long trip,
one has to slow down – stop!
Touch deeper down things!
My life is not exhausted by these
busy
activities – good as they may be.
In quiet – silence – woods
there is a meeting – mysterious –
human touching divine – two
lovers meeting – holding hands.
Strange – silent meeting stronger
than
all the noisy activity in the
world.
Sacred silence is where my real
life is -
more real than running
around the big city. My beloved
takes
my hand – will lead me through
ups – downs of city life –
helping me make
it a better place –lead the ship
of
my life to a good – safe – final
harbor.
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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 this. It comes into
our life as a robber in the dark of night unannounced nor sought by us. Someone touches us at our center. As time goes
on, 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 it; 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 were overwhelmed by it at the depth to
their person and found with time that their whole life revolved around it. John
of the Cross stated 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 the presence is at our center. We cannot
answer the question of our identity if we do not take into account this reality
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 because He loves
us and wants us to love Him. 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 stated 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 a meeting in silence and darkness so that the Lord can entice
us to love Him. He 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 the divine and we are
subject to it. We realize that we cannot become our true self and grow into our
true depth if we do not give ourselves to it. This whole relationship with the
presence of God within us is a difficult one because we can never grasp the
transcendent who is always beyond and transcendent to us. The mystics rightly
say that we can know and experience the divine only in silence and the night.
The center of our life and the question of our identity are related to the Lord
whom we can never grasp but whom we can only desire. As time goes on, the question of desiring God
becomes paramount in our lives because this is how we can touch Him/Her.
The advent of the presence of the
divine in our contemplative path sets up conflicts within us. First, it 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 Lord’s presence grows to dominate us, we lose our taste
for 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 saying nothing or repeating our mantra. 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 the divine presence. 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 the 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 it came into our life.
Many of the mystics referred to the metaphor of the spiritual sense of
touch to describe this advent. St. John of the Cross in his poem ‘The Flame of
Love’ described it as ‘a gentle touch.’ The touch is real but it also a
mysterious one because the divine is transcendent and ineffable to us. It encourages
us 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
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