Fear, Desire and Silence.

 As I enter these weeks and months I have a huge pile of books to read. In honesty, there are probably more books than I have time ironically.

I wasn't sure which book to begin with. So, I randomly (or was led by God?) picked a green one. Green is my favourite colour. Yes, it really was as random as that. The book in question is Ruth Haley Barton's "Invitation to Solitude and Silence."

It was an unlikely addition to my list in some ways. Barton comes from a very different Christian tradition and the book is published by a notable publisher from that tradition, and yet the book spoke to me as I read about it. I'm only a few chapters in, but it is a book for practitioners who want to explore silence and its twin solitude, as spiritual disciplines. 

In chapters 3 and 4 she talks about how the call to silence is to take one's spiritual life seriously. Entering into silence challenges us to silence the noise in our lives; to step away from our striving and self-absorption; and to give God our undivided attention.

And then in these early sections of this book, she invites us to be like the Nike advert, and just do it. Silence needs to be practiced. She talks openly about her struggles in terms of praxis and offers some wise advice.

In the midst of this section, she drops in a quote from Dallas Willard which stopped me dead in my tracks,

'... Silence is frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life. It reminds us of death which will cut off from the world and leave us only God. And in the quiet, what if there turns out to be very little between us and God..?'

That quote made me realsie that I am feeling frightened as I begin this journey. I'm frightened, or perhaps better put, anxious about what will happen in the parish in my absence; I'm anxious about whether I will actually be able to let go; but beneath all of that though lies a nagging anxiety about being stripped away as I enter silence and encountering God.

Barton suggests a good exercise. I will write down on a card my anxieties and loves on a card and to seal in in an envelope marked TRUST. I will then place this envelope under the icon in my sacred space. They will be God's to hold in these days. I hope to let them go into His hands.

Despite my anxieties, silence is what my soul desires. I am being called into it. I yearn for it.

"...Depending on our experience of wanting things and then receiving them, or not, we may harbor deep-seated fear that we will not get what our heart desperately wants. It can be frightening to allow ourselves to want something we're not sure we can have, especially if it is something as essential as the presence of God in our lives. In many of us, the fear of not getting what our heart longs for has led us to develop an unconscious pattern of distancing ourselves from our de sire in order to avoid the pain of its lack of fulfillment.

But the truth is that desire is the life-blood surging through the heart of the spiritual life. You may not realize it, but your desire for God is the truest and most essential thing about you.."

 

And there it is; what Barton calls the 'push-pull phenomenon.' I need to enter silence. I feel it deep within me like one feels when absent from our lover. And yet, I am anxious, yes perhaps even frightened. The front end of that fear is ultimately a distraction, but behind it is the God who is calling me.

What I feel is desire. As Barton says,

"... When we feel our desire, we are actually responding to God, because he has already initiated with us. It might feel as if our desire for God originates with us, but the truth is that the origin of our desire for God is God's desire for us..."

And so I need to take the first step. I need to be silent. I need to accept what comes however anxious I may feel, because it's not what comes, but who. God.