 By Kenton W. Smith, D.Min., DASD
3:36 AM. Awake…again. Mind working, whirling. Body tossing, turning. Spirit restless in the dark. In my mid eighth decade sleep is impoverished. But Presence is lurking. In the biblical narrative night is a time of brooding unaware of something unimagined being born in the unconscious. What I am writing is not routine, it is not in my training as a theologian or spiritual director. Something unorthodox taught me that chaos is something and a whole lot of something comes of it. I was trained as many of us in the spiritual arts of direction: silence, listening, the long loving look at the real, gazing, the Experience Circle, cataphatic/apophatic prayer, Lectio Divina, the Examine, Centering Prayer, journaling, walking in nature, the Rosary, Reformed spirituality, Catholic spirituality, Feminist spirituality, Ecospirituality, the Ignatian Exercises, discernment (personally and systemically), theopoetics, artistry, Taizé, et al. Like most of us I have practiced various forms of these disciplines for nearly thirty years. I was filled to overflowing…and then I was not. Maybe I was bored, distracted, trying too hard. Maybe I was aging out. Or maybe it was something Else. Something original, fresh born. In the early 2000’s I was a group facilitator in the DASD program at SFTS. Our instructor invited us to discover our own name for God. We could hold to one or all the names we knew for the Mystery we call God or search for something more personal, alive, enduring. I confess by this time the name of Jesus had worn out on me. Overuse I suppose, weaponized by some, commercialized by too many, hijacked by politicians. During an hour of silence it came to me, moving, stirring, energizing, bonding to my soul and body. Ever since I have been married to this secretive name*, never wavering, never fading, moving through me like a life form not my own yet my own. But I forgot the spiritual practice of naming. I kept on keeping on until I couldn’t. Twenty some years later it was 3:36 AM. Awake. Chaos inside. A cataphatic apophatic swirl of consciousness and unconsciousness streaming thoughts and images of God mixed with nonsense and longing. It felt raw unhinged like prayer without shape or discipline or practice. I forced myself to return to the mantra of my secretive name: Desire of My Heart*. Begging to fall asleep. Then out of nothing, something moving through from the other side, something unspoken, unheard, but present and active. It was just a notion like “Who am I to you, who do you say I am?” Only it wasn’t like that, it was more like a life-giving energy that sought me out. Over the next weeks the invitation returned nightly and “tapped” through my unconscious to my conscious knowing. These qualities are not theology or dogma which are attempts to describe God as a thing “[and] by their very nature are inadequate” but “can only be expressed in symbols or analogies(1)." Theology is faith seeking understanding(2) , spirituality is faith seeking intimacy (3). Intimacy with God is a whole lot of something. * The essential nature of God is Beauty. Beauty is a mystical presence (O’Donohue). All the world is beautiful, everyone is beautiful, I am beautiful. * The essential nature of God is Belonging. Everyone belongs. I belong. As a helpless introvert I have rarely known actual belonging. * The essential nature of God is Friendship. The existential nature of my knowing God is not that of superior but that of an equal. This is the meaning of incarnation, isn’t it? I am lonely for human friendship but this perceived experience of God is like a bond of mutual attraction. * The essential nature of God is Good. My (our) essential nature is good. Nothing about us can extinguish what God has created in us. *The essential nature of our nature is created Unfinished. Creation is unfinished. God is unfinished. I am unfinished. Like my secretive name for God these cautiously stated notions are mantras that grow my being and thriving in a way of knowing myself, seeing others, referencing my lived relationship to God. The mantras expand my consciousness of the world, its beauty, wonder, griefs and sorrows, work to be done. Are they enough? Of course not, the Mystery of God can only be expressed in limited terms and each of us will only have limited notions. I really can’t explain how this works, nothing is something, when I go into the unknown the unknown knows me and desires to be known by me. 1 Lucien Joseph Richard, The Spirituality of John Calvin (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1974), 186- 187. 2 Attributed to St. Augustine and St. Anselm. 3 Andrew Dreitcer, “The History of Christian Spirituality” (course notes, San Francisco Theological Seminary, DASD, 1998). Comments are closed.
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