Tag: Apophatic

Apophatic

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

This morning, it is my intention to ask for Nothing. Admittedly, I’m not entirely sincere. Someday, maybe. Deep in my soul, I suspect the greatest gift of all is Nothing, but Something is far easier.

Consciously or not, every living being begs, demands, or fights for something: Continued life. Sustenance. Shelter. Justice. Revenge. The right lover. Riches, recognition, health, a big win. And when the lost coin is found, the cancer recedes, there is rejoicing, and God is declared good.

But when the earth quakes or the bomb drops, the rivers flood or starvation takes another child, I see it is better to ask for Nothing. What do we say to the team that didn’t win? To the one not found? To the destitute scrambling for crumbs falling from the tables of the enormously wealthy? To the planet shrugging us off with great loss and pain?

“Are you asking me?” God’s steamy voice rises majestic from the compost pile where microbes are hard at work. Like a startled deer, I run for the hills. God runs alongside, tossing shiny bits of wisdom behind us so I can find my way back when the panic subsides.

At the summit, I collapse on lichen covered sandstone. There is nowhere left to run. The view is spectacular. God has spread itself across the face of the dying earth. Eternal, resilient, generous. I point out the gully where I hope to be buried. God laughs.

“All creation is a churning tomb,” the formless God says. “From whence you will reappear.”

“Are you Nothing or Everything?” I lay back and stare straight up, deflecting from the image of my resurrection as nutrients and organic matter.

“Yes,” answers the Sky. “And so are you.”

I shake my head but God is adamant. “You’re the performance and the applause, achievement and failure, pride and shame. You’re the darkness sacrificed to define light, and you’re the light that leaps into darkness, knowing it will not survive.”

“Sucked in by a black hole?” I ask. “Gone forever?”

God smiles. “Something like that. But not quite. You understand that I’m the place where light goes to rest, right?”

“No,” I say. “I don’t really understand that.”

I pull what’s left of myself together, move toward the day, and instead of Nothing, I ask for very little as I settle into the Unsettled Place of the Holy Dialectic. It isn’t all that comfortable, but I prefer it to the self-righteous mirage of certainty cloaking the willfully deluded, the terrified, and the cruel.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” God says. “Suits us just fine for now.”

Nada

Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments

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God wasn’t present in any noticeable way this morning, but I had that spidey sense she was hovering somewhere close by. I thought maybe a little chatter would draw her out. “God,” I said. “Sometimes you and I have a communication gap. And I can see why. There’s me. An average, timeworn human–two bumpy hands, a couple of creaky knees, an increasingly unreliable memory, sporadic compassion–and then there’s you. From what we’ve observed so far, you seem to have created 10 billion galaxies, each of which averages 100 billion stars—one, (one!) of which is the fiery orb asserting itself in my own little sky right now.” I tried looking deeply impressed. No response.

“You are absurdly, incomprehensibly intangible, nonbodied, nonbound. You are without need for breath. You are breath. You are beyond time. It’s a toy of yours. You have no name and every name. You are the namer. We have little to nothing in common, but here you are, hanging around.” I thought maybe admitting I could sense her would cause a response. Nope.

“God, look,” I said. “You’ve always treated us humans with respect, even when we amputate compassion, act like idiots, and appropriate the idea of you for our own ends. I wish we didn’t do that, but you have to admit you’re difficult, you big old lunk of creativity. You tiny speck, you source of suffering and disaster, comfort and shelter. You ladybug, sea monster, apple fallen close to the tree. You infectious laugher, chill of death, you decomposer. You teller of the final truth. Most of us don’t like the real you very much.

“I know,” God said, finally speaking up. “But I’m grateful when I can absorb even a little bit of liking. I make do with very little.”

“Someday, I won’t exist,” I said. “Then what?”

“Do I exist?” God answered.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Then, darling, we have something in common after all, don’t we?” God took a long swig of an awful tasting green smoothie I’d made and spit it back in the cup.

“Good lord!” she said. “Why in the world do you drink things like this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “In fact, right now, I know nothing.”

“Excellent answer,” God said. “You’re lying, but that’s okay. It’s an aspirational nothingness. Another thing that we might have in common. Eventually.”

I thought about that for a minute. Yes, I know nothing for certain, but I speculate endlessly, grabbing what appears to be solid, holding on for dear life. We are splintered, me and God. But there’s something. Something. Or maybe I have it wrong. There’s Nothing. A deep, resonant Nothing where our trueness will finally be at peace.

“Could you give me some space?” I asked God. “Today, you’re too much.”

God gave me a regal nod and complied. In the dead silence, I was as bereft as I’ve ever been. And as loved. And as complete.

Random and Small Redemptions

Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments

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Lately, I’ve been having the weirdest experiences ever. I call them God, but they freak me out. Little serendipities. Parallel visions of fire. Random and small redemptions. Good things happen. Are they God? Bad things happen. Are they God? Can you pray yourself into an astounding win? Can you pray yourself out of a fatal car wreck? No wonder people yank God down into manageable formulas and comforting, though wildly implausible, explanations. Believing into an open, infinite God is hard.

“Oh baby,” God interjected. “I so hope you’ll grow up a bit more before you die.”

“So do I… And how would that happen exactly?” I said, somewhat sincerely. And then things came completely apart. The chains fell. Static and then silence. The call dropped. The line went dead. The station went off the air. The grid went down. My familiar body was suddenly defined by subzero isolation, white noise, and emptiness turning in on itself. Eternal nothingness. No self. No one.

“Can you hear me now?” God whispered. The words froze in the air and shattered. I forced my fists to splay into fingers and asked my bones if they still were there. The familiar rattle reassured me. I inhaled, filled what I assumed were my lungs, fell backward into oblivion, and flailed until I’d created an imperfect angel. Then I burrowed home on hands and knees, knowing the way instinctively.

“You crack me up,” God said as I emerged from my self-inflicted plummet.

I struggled for footing in a nonexistent present. “And obviously, you crack me up. But not in a good way,” I mumbled through unfamiliar lips.

“Emptiness is a good way,” God said. “Think about it. The fullness of time is the end of time.”

We sat for a while, breathing shared and splendid air. “Sometimes, I dream I’m weightless,” I said. “And I can fly.”

“Yes,” God said.

“And I can see forever and hear every beautiful sound ever made,” I said, lying.

“Nice try,” God said. “That’s not the kind of growth I was hoping for.”

“I know,” I said. “But you like it when I crack you up.”

“True,” God said. “There’s that. And I guess you realize you can’t really lie to me.”

“Yeah” I said. “But you let people lie all the time. I hate that. You don’t swoop in, smite them, or even clear things up.”

“True,” God said. “I just wait.”

“Okay,” I said. I’d had enough sparring for a while. “I’ll wait with you.”

“Promise?” God said, with a resigned, lonesome look.

The question didn’t surprise me, but my answer made me incredibly sad. “You know I can’t.”

God’s head dropped. I knew he was crying. I took him in my arms and said gently but firmly, “I can’t promise you anything, God. But I’ll try. I’ll really try.”