So, this is what I'm contemplating today. The sense of the absence of God, and how it scares some people away and draws others closer.

"The more a human being advances in the Christian faith, the more they live the presence of God as an absence, the more they accept to die to the idea of becoming aware of God, of fathoming Him. For they have learned, while advancing, that god is unfathomable. And from then on the presence of God assumes value in their eyes only against the backdrop of absence. The mystic, in his long and complicated pilgrimage, experiences alternately the presence and absence of God. But, by degrees, the absence of God is felt more and more and the mystic understands that this absence is now the norm. Thus the mystic is someone who has had a long-term confrontation with God, like Jacob in the struggle that he \waged all through the night, someone who does not cease to confront God...What the mystic experiences...is a kind of distancing from God in proportion to advances in the deepening of their faith."
                                                                                                      -Jean Francois Six

I'm never quite certain how to respond to people who are doubting God, or abandoning their faith because they don't see Him. Don't hear Him. Don't get any answers to their prayers.

Partly I don't know how to respond because I feel like they've discovered the greatest secret of the Christian Faith: Many, many of us don't feel God, a lot of the time. And I think the above quote is right, that it's often not the result of doubt--it's the result of faith. Yet, because our churches train us to act as if we NEVER doubt, never feel His absence, never feel lost or abandoned because we don't feel Him as we once did, we're left to believe that because we don't feel Him he left. Or because we don't feel Him, we're doing something wrong. We're left believing that that which often comes as a mark of deepening relationship is exactly the opposite.

There's a quietness to the faith that carries on in the present absence of God. A gentleness much like sitting beside your lover in a dark room. You don't see them, you aren't talking to them (or if you are, they aren't talking back), yet even though your senses don't perceive their presence...you know they're there. Because sometimes the lights come one, and you have a conversation. But even when you don't...you still know they're there. And it's a gentle, quiet peace. A peace that comes with maturity of relationship, and less...NEED, I guess, of constant reminders. "Yes, I'm here. Yes, I love you. Yes, I'm here. Yes, I love you..." "I KNOW. I know in a way that means you don't need to keep telling me. It's okay. Let's just sit together."

I'm not sure if this is making any sense. Please feel free to let me know if it is. My head aches again, and I've only just had my tea. So...here's hoping this gives you something to contemplate today as well.

Shalom.

It's Saint Caedmon's Day.

Caedmon (died 680 A.D.) lived in Ireland in a time when history, news, entertainment, life and love were all shared by word of mouth, and by music. Ballads passed down from generation to generation carried the life-blood of the People.

But Caedmon couldn't sing. Couldn't play a note, couldn't even remember a story in the proper order. When his turn came, so the story goes, he would panic; words would get jumbled, notes lost, and singing would come to a standstill if he even tried to join. 

So he began to avoid any situation in which he might be called upon to sing. One night, having left a warm, joyful hall full of singing lest the harp be passed to him, he fell asleep on his bed in the cattle shed, where he'd gone to sleep with the beasts. 

In his dreams a man came to him, and stood before him. 

"Sing for me, Caedmon," he said. "Sing for me."

"I can't sing," Caedmon protested. "Why do you think I'm out here, instead of at the feast?"

"Sing anyway. Sing for me."

"I don't know what to sing."
"Sing about the beginning of the world, and sing about creation."

And so Caedmon sang. In his dream, before the man who had called on him to sing, he sang a song of love and praise to the Father of Heaven, Creator of All. And, in his dream, the song was so beautiful as to draw tears from the hearer.

But when he woke, the song was still with him, and he sang it for everyone who would hear. The story of Caedmon tells us that he sang for poor and rich, educated and simple, man and woman and child. He sang the stories of the Creator, the stories of Love. 

And so the man who couldn't speak a story, much less sing one, became the carrier of the greatest Story, because when told to open his mouth, he trusted that the song would be there.

And so today, 
    we think of those whose song is unsung, 
         and pray that they find their music
    we think of our own song
          and ask if we have sung it well
              and if not, we take a breath
          and ask for grace
              and open our mouths to sing.

I cannot speak, 
unless You loose my tongue;
I only stammer,
and I speak uncertainly;
but if You touch my mouth,
my Lord, 
then I will sing the story
of Your wonders!

Teach me to hear that story,
through each person,
to cradle a sense of wonder
in their life,
to honour the hard-earned wisdom
of their sufferings
to waken their joy
that the King of all kings
stoops down
to wash their feet,
and looking up
into their face
says,
'I know--I understand'

This world has become
a world of broken dreams
where dreamers are hard to find
and friends are few

Lord, be the gatherer of our dreams.
You set the countless stars in place,
and found room for each of them to shine.
You listen for us in Your heaven-bright hall.
Open our mouths to tell our tales of wonder.

Teach us again the greatest story ever:
the One who made the worlds 
became a little, helpless child...

So many who have heard
forget to tell the Story.
                                                         --Adapted from Celtic Daily Prayer
                                                          From the Northumbria Community