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O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. (Psalm 131:1-2)
It is not the knowledge of great complexities that fills the
heart, but simple words and common moments that inexplicably bear us into
Love’s embrace.
Just so, thick books no long allure me as once they did, many
of which I forced myself to read to satisfy my ego. I seek common words and familiar
images that transport the heart into the Mystery who transcends them.
Lately, I hear Freida Frahm’s voice and see her frown. She
returns from whatever corner of heaven she occupies to accuse me. “You make
everything so hard,” she says, as on the long ago day when I, fresh from
seminary, led a women’s Bible study. “Why do you make everything so hard?”
Why, Frieda, wasn’t it clear? I needed to complexify everything
to show you how smart I was, always knowing my knowledge and skills were
insufficient to achieve the goals I once held for myself.
And now, nearly 70, weary of straining for thoughts above my
paygrade, I want what I always needed—not to grasp the great but to be bathed
in the clarity of words and images that transport the heart into its blessed
homeland where words and images fall away and the silent soul sinks into a sea
of Love, beyond the need to understand who and what this Holy Mystery is.
(If you
understand it, it is not God. Isn’t that what St. Augustine told us 16
centuries ago?)
Ancient images, praying the Psalms, bear us into this
wonderland, which is more real than the illusions to which our minds and egos
daily cling.
The Lord is my shepherd, Psalm 23 says, right before
interpreting itself to say, well, no, maybe the Holy Mystery is more like a
host who sets a great table and makes us the guests of honor.
Another Psalm, 139, ushers us further into the great hall of
portraiture Scripture is. There, the Holy One is an all-enveloping, all-knowing
Presence, cloaked in darkness, silent as light, who knows us whole, sensibly
touching us with an affection more poignant than the tears of longing awakened as
we stumble to speak our love for our dear ones who one day will carry on
without us.
Or maybe, as in Psalm 131, this Loving Mystery is like a
mother holding her weaned child, the two, at one, at rest, needing nothing but
their presence, one with the other. Forget words; there are none for such
beauty, just the simplicity and irreducibility of the holy gift love is, the
presence of the One who was and is and always will be.
Simple as that, and just as mysterious. Sorry Frieda.
David L. Miller
