“When your heart condemns you, quiet it before God. For He knows everything.” 1 John 3:19–20
Summer is just around the bend. The warm air has already reached us here in Portland, OR, and wrapped her hair in a bun, leaving our necks exposed to sweat it out. Depeche Mode plays “Personal Jesus” on the radio, and I smile when I think of Johnny Cash’s version. That old man in black sure knew a thing or two.
Most of the people I meet with in spiritual direction want one thing — to feel themselves beloved on this earth (just like Raymond Carver). “A Late Fragment,” he called it. As if something realized at the last minute. One last grab or touch onto Someone’s garment — wait. Something I can hold and feel and know is real. Tell me again. A frayed fragment of imagination, someone listening on the other line, someone to hear our prayers, someone who cares. Tell me I’m not just imagining it. Tell me it’s true.
Sometimes I know it’s true. When the windows are down and my hair is up and summer comes sweeping me off my feet. That’s what I’m afraid of. Being swept up.
***
I snuck away yesterday to my favorite Benedictine abbey, tucked away on a hill in Mt. Angel, Oregon. I asked six other women if they’d like to join me to steal back some time before summer arrives with our kids’ LET’S HAVE FUN NOW requests and our jobs’ demands while the air, quite literally, gets hotter and thicker. Stealing back time — a phrase Martin Laird refers to in his book Into the Silent Land as something that happens when we sit in centering prayer.
I drew a circle around the date I’d go to the abbey. This day I will steal back some time. This day, I will find my feet again and not be swept up.
I print out six copies of Jan Richardson’s reflection on Holy Absence, “A Blessing of Rest,” and a print of her artwork Circle of Quiet. A golden circle painted through overlapping textured squares. I’m not sure what we’ll find, but this circle cuts through time with one long continuous shhhhh, finger to her lips, Do Not Disturb sign. There is a war within a prayer closet.
I enter the abbey’s church an hour before their noon vesper. I am held within the circular architecture of her dome and archways. The only thing square is the bench upon which I settle, the tiles under my feet, and the seats the monks rise and fall upon while singing the Psalms.
I let this circle of quiet settle around me like a hush after a rainstorm hits hot pavement. I need silence to find myself, to find God, and I am desperate. Finally, after twenty minutes of listening to silence, it arrives.
I am within, now.
I am chiseling away at something. Some sort of recovery. I’m sorting and sifting, trying to find an origin of myself that was lost. I realize I’ve been at this for years. Recovering memories from my younger self, looking for God back then too. Another realization rises — I am chiseling away at my own soul. I have become my own source of judgement, blindly seeking recovery. There in the debris lies a chisel. Where has this come from? This incessant need to be so hard on myself. The chisel is sharp, and I’ve kept it in the fire for too long.
Martin Schleske, in his forthcoming book Listening Hands: Eavesdropping on the Sound of Life, describes this sharp, brittle chisel as a “blue-backed” blade. A blade that has become blue in the fire for the sake of sharpening. But it is overzealous and brittle, leaving notches and gashes in the grain of our soul where the Lord wishes there were only smooth engravings. In my recovery of self, I’ve found a tool. Something handed to me at a young age.
Here, work on yourself. This is how you will become holy. This is how you’ll become pleasing to Jesus. I am the firstborn daughter, and I was good. Look at all the ways I can prove myself. To do nothing? To not earn my keep? That I was a failure — an irresponsible letdown. When you let down the people you love, love becomes elusive. The thing is, the evil one loves to entice us with the law. I am allured by the temptation of refinement or sanctification and handed an overly sharp blue-backed blade. I’ve found it. Now I know where it comes from. It came as a whisper so long ago from the branches of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil — Did God really say? Did he really say I am good and he delights in me? I would much rather be my own judge. You’re not good enough to be loved by God. You’re not worth it. The hand that holds this brittle, overly sharp blade is blind, impatient, and judgmental. It’s the sort of pride that relishes self-contempt, delights in being hard on ourselves. It’s the pride that says look at me, I’m bad, look how special I am by refining myself. By listening to the excuses of the evil one, I chiseled away at my soul, becoming inwardly hard until burnout became inevitable. In my soul, I truly believed that I was not worthy of God’s love. Not because I had done anything bad, it was the exact opposite — for eighteen years I had been good and been praised for it. Loved for it. To admit that none of it mattered and God still loved me was like a quick inhale of relief, but still holding my breath to open my eyes and make sure he’s not mad at me. I think this is why legalistic systems are so alluring. Their perceived safety, control, predictability, and performative rewards are enticing to sensitive souls. The evil one likes to use these systems to point out sin where there is no sin. Turning common everyday grace into something to be examined and criticized. If he can’t make our soul hard, he will tempt us to over-refinement. To quote Martin again, an over-refined soul is
a soul that suffers under the pressure of qualms and is scorched by its holy standards. Right where the blade is thin and sensitive, where it is impossible to distribute the heat, it burns, becoming blue-brittle — in modern day terms, it suffers burnout. The overly refined soul is never satisfied. It constantly craves a life that is happier, more fortunate, more sacred and holy. It sharpens itself blue through impatience and self-judgment … When you stop believing that God is your enemy, his mercy will heal your heart and you will become more merciful and gentler with yourself. You will stop taking to heart things that are not about you. The Holy Spirit says to the overly refined soul: “It is not you, but the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).
And so, within this great circle of quiet, I lay down my blade. Consolation arrives from the Giver in the forms of courage and tears. But I think to myself, what a mess I’ve made. This is no matter to the One who loves us. We can lay down our blades, our sorting and solving, our fixing, our wrestling. “Why don’t you come and rest for awhile?” he says. Let that circle of struggle become a circle of quiet. It’s okay for us to remove ourselves. Let it become a “holy absence,” as Jan Richardson’s spiritual director called this circle of quiet. After all, our Lord is far more merciful and gentler on us than we are. Perhaps in all of our becoming, he is asking us to step away for a Sabbath within the corner of our souls and trust that in our absence, his good spirit is at work.
***
I return home with my friend in my car. We talk about this new-wave holiness sweeping over younger Christian women into an ideal utopia. The same insisting hand, chiseling away trying to find the origin to themselves. I reach my hand out into the wind of my rolled-down window, warm air greeting me in a rush, touching faith. Johnny Cash, this time. Touching that late fragment. Being entirely, and completely, swept up.
