Absence and Presence

The opposite of Presence is Absence.  I think of the anonymous Holocaust writer- I believe in love though it is absent... I think of the Psalmist, his cry in the desert- My God, Why have you forgotten me?- and his yearning for union, as deep calls to deep.

I used to call it deep prayer... I didn't understand it at the time, during that dark night of my soul- eight years ago now, after my father died.  I would just sit without words and let the images pass through the desert of my mind- a kind of mental collage in place of a daily examen.  After coming home from the morning class I taught, while the baby slept, I would just sit and wait for something in my heart to break open. Sometimes it was beauty-- something sweet my child had done or a happy moment with a student (I was teaching adult ESOL at the time); sometimes it was pain-- a story someone had shared in class, or grief- a memory of my father, a knowing of my mother's pain.   But I knew when the moment struck and the tears began to flow, that I could lean into the sweet spot of joy and sorrow and be held.  

I did not call it God;  though I had some sense that this was soul work, the work of healing. God was absent, I said then, as my old images of divinity had been shredded to a raw pulp, and I did not know what, if anything, would emerge in its place.

Tonight sitting in meditation, this old prayer rose up from the deep heart.  I have been without words, and falling back these past few months into old patterns of busyness and distraction. I have felt that old dryness of soul, that longing for water, even as I remind myself to return again and again to practice. There is a feeling  of absence, a feeling perhaps that can only mean there is more healing soul work to do. 

But tonight, by candlelight, much was rising-- like the recent memory of my daughters after they climbed a mountain, the magical movement from seeming distress to serene connection; like the faces of the women I gathered with Sunday night in the church sanctuary-- their sacred stories and dreams heard and held in our safe space; like the calls to action rising in me-- the woman I know I must reach out to, the service I know I must offer. The movements rise in a wellspring of tears, and all other distraction and worry just fade. This is sacred knowing; this is the still small voice poignant and present; this is God.

I think back then and know that in the dark night of loss and absence I was not alone. In the yearning and the tears and the moments of remembrance, I was held.  God was present, though I did not name it then. Holy, holy, holy...magnificent truth, beauty, love.  These are the many names for this spirit of life which sings in all.

Perhaps I might liken my movement of stepping into the work of spiritual direction in this light, as this past month I have begun to move more fully into the call.   (Though in many ways,  I have always been a spiritual companion, what else is a call but stepping more fully into oneself?)  My training and connection with other spiritual directors has helped me to hone skills, strengthen practical knowledge, affirm gifts-- and I move more deeply into that practice which makes me come alive: that of witnessing, celebrating, and gently midwifing the Spirit's movement in the lives of others. If there is any direction involved, it is, as I read recently, only to point and say-- "Look, the light is coming from over there!"

I believe in Light though it is Absent.

In darkness, there are glimmers...

and Presence,

the emergence of the deep heart,

finally arrived.