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The Silence and the Fury

Silence.
It falls quickly, quietly,
an elusive prey
in a culture priding itself
on do-this-get-that-turn-this-on-
noise,
the buzzing and whirling and whining
that is antithematic with
the chriping and blowing and splashing
movement of the wild outside --
or maybe antitheological,
this noise.
Silence
is a harder music to grasp,
and in the grasping
we lose the melody.
Maybe rather it is a predator
and we the prey,
and it grabs ahold of us,
and that is why we run
like zebras from savannah lions,
the multitasking, gadgetry-stripes
our only noisy defense
against its viscous and furious fangs.
Because when silence sinks in,
the ego is defleshed,
self-importance shattered
like illusory smoke-and-mirrors,
the bones of independence and self-protection
that we have used to stand alone
crushed to bits of sharded waste.
This is what silence does,
this not-so-silent killer.
We must have it to save our souls
and not seek to save ourselves
from its violent intention
to bring us face-to-face
with the Wild, Wonderful Creator-God,
this heart of furious love,
and His still, small voice
that whispers through the noise
the highest music.
To hear it, we must have
silence.

-Brian Fidler

The (Bloody) Way of Love

God has brought something really affirming to me this morning. I can at times come so close to being taken out by the brokenness around me. I feel it like a tremor in my bones sometimes, particularly with those closest to me. I hold to redemption -- I'm alive by way of that great work of Jesus and for the sake of it for others is why I'm in counseling school now. I battle for others that the Kingdom may be won in their lives. But it still threatens me, the hurt of others. Over the last couple of weeks I've felt overwhelmed and exhausted. I'm not trying to "fix" anybody; I'm just desiring life in the deepest and most glorious sense for those I know (and for myself). But what Jesus brought to me is that I feel these quakes in my heart because of love. It is proof that my heart has been made and redeemed to love. It is the same suffering that Jesus experiences (Philippians 3:10).

But what I need to do with that now is to learn to stand in the face of it, to stand as a warrior even as I kneel as a servant. To desire life and freedom for others but continue to walk with Jesus wherever it is He's taking me. The offer and invitaiton for others is the same. "The direct experience of God is grace, indeed," said Ignatius of Loyola, "and basically, there is no one to whom it is refused." But the responsibility of following after Jesus rests on the shoulders of each person individually. I am to "seek life in the spirit of furious indifference to it," in the words of G.K. Chesterton, even for others. We each must "desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."

I have a close friend that's going through a profound change in his life -- or the possibility of change, at least. He is in a desperate place, a frightening one. Rock bottom, really. But, I don't think he's in such a foreign place as I would like him to be. I'd be comfortable if the seeming waste and debris of his life were because of a sin or God's wrath or Satan's strongholds. But I rather think he's where he is because of God's love, that the fierce love of God refuses to leave him where he is, and that He is even now unwraveling him from the thorns and brambles that he's got himself caught in. It's painful, and it's bloody, but it's also redemptive.

God waits to be wanted by us all. Having Him and having his Kingdom come through our lives and the ones we love will require all the violence of our "Viking" hearts in full-throttle (Matthew 11:12). To borrow from Robert Service in his poem The Law of the Yukon,

I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave and mild,
but by men with the hearts of Vikings, and the simple faith of a child.

Maybe the disillusioned ex-literary professor vagrant Harry Sagan in The Fisher King said it best in relating the story of the Fool and the Fisher King: "...One day, a fool wandered into the castle and found the king alone. Being a fool, he was simple-minded, he didn't see a king, he saw a man alone and in pain. And he asked the king: 'What ails you, friend?' The king replied: 'I'm thirsty. I need some water to cool my throat.' So the fool took a cup from beside the bed, filled it with water, handed it to the king. As the king began to drink he realized that his wound was healed. He looked at his hands, and there was the Holy Grail that which he sought all his life! And he turned to the fool and said in amazement: 'How could you find that which what my brightest and bravest could not?' And the fool replied: 'I don't know. I only knew that you were thirsty."

May we find our hearts and follow the bloody and "foolish" Way of Love.

Large With Strength

"When I called, you answered me; you made me bold with strength in my soul." -Psalm 138:3, NASB.

I opened the Scriptures this morning to this verse. Immediately I felt drawn -- no, not drawn -- pierced by something in it. What is it, exactly, that has speared me? Something about strength in the soul. Something about God answering and making something in me. I pull out the Message Bible to see if Eugene Peterson's paraphrase might capture it for me. "The moment I called out, you stepped in; you made my life large with strength." Large with strength. You made my life large with strength. Yes, this is it. I hear His voice through the Scripture. This is God's word for me, spoken intimately and from His heart to say, "This is what I am doing in your life, my son, my dear friend." I'm trying to decide which is more incredible for me: this secret that He let me in on or the fact that He is this desirous for my communion with Him. I love both.

This is what God is up to: enlarging our hearts and the rule and domain of Christ within us (where the Kingdom lies), that He might dwell more fully and presently there. In The Sacred Romance, John Eldredge writes, "As our soul grows in the love of God and journeys forth toward him, our heart’s capacities also grow and expand: 'Thou shalt enlarge my heart' (Ps. 119:32 KJV)." And Isaiah cries out: "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes" (54:2).

That my "tent" (the sanctuary of the Spirit of God) may be enlarged, I pray along with George MacDonald:

O Christ, my life, possess me utterly.
Take me and make a little Christ of me.
If I am anything but thy Father's son,
'Tis something not yet from the darkness won.
Oh, give me light to live with open eyes.
Oh, give me life to hope above all skies.
Give me thy spirit to haunt the Father with my cries.

-from Diary of an Old Soul