Reading Between the Lines

This morning, most of my readings have had adventure and journey imagery sprinkled through.

When we embark on such a journey, we understand there will be challenges along the way, unexpected encounters that stretch us to our limits and change the shape of who we are. We know we will emerge changed, bearing the marks of the journey on our soul and body. Our friends may not recognize us when we return; we may not even recognize ourselves! Such a journey requires commitment – willingness to press on through sunlit days and dark nights, unspeakable beauty and terrible danger, sometimes finding companionship and sometimes feeling utterly alone, sometimes sure we are headed in the right direction, other times afraid we have completely lost our way. It is that perilous and priceless journey inward to that place at the center of ourselves where God dwells. (p. 19, "Invitations to Silence and Solitude") While I don't believe that God dwells just at the center of ourselves, but also at the center of life all around us. Yet, the imagery is powerful.

...Via negativa, which has its underlying assumption the hiddenness of God, not the overt visibility of God... Dillard reminds the reader that nature and/or God is apt to hide itself. She tells stories of trying to catch glimpses of fish in deep water, of stalking muskrats in the woods for hours, of turning just in time to see the final flash of a fleeing squirrel or bird. All such stories are metaphors for a fleeting God, a God that must be sought, stalked, waited out, patiently and tirelessly. The mystical experience results from the expansion of the via negativa concept to include not only God, but also the individual in pursuit of God... As God told Moses on Sinai, no one can see God's glory fully and live to tell the story. Yet, this danger does not warrant ending the pursuit of the fleeting God... "You quit your house and country, quit your ship, and quit your companions in the tent... the light on the far side of the blizzard lures you. You walk, and one day you enter the spread heart of silence... This the end of the Via Negativa, the lightless edge where the slopes of knowledge dwindle, and love for its own sake, lacking an object, begins..." One must be willing to go out to the furthest edge of the mystery that is God, a place where one may be allowed a brief glimpse of glory, an dmight also die in the process. Dillard mentions Ezekiel's rebuking of false prophets who have "not gone into the gaps." Dillard, in an earnest tone, tells the reader, "The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the sprit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the clifts in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God... Go up into the gaps... Stalk the gaps." She emphasizes again that there are no guarantees for safety and that one must be prepared for surprise and shock when dealing wth God. God will "catch you up, aloft, up to any cap at all, and you'll come back... transformed in a way you may not have bargained for – dribbling and crazed."

At first, this reading frustrated me. Why does God do this when all I want is to see His face. And, I'm tired. Then, I realized, I have been stalking Him all along. Not like a big game trophy to be mounted above our fireplace. But, the true God. I have seen his tracks. I have seen more of His shadows recently. I think I am getting closer.