Yesterday at my spiritual direction meeting, I discussed my current issues with prayer. The other night I was saying my prayers before falling asleep and felt like I was talking to nothing, no one. Nothing was there. I have been feeling a very silent God in my life at this moment and this is one of the first times in my life that I have felt this way. I was reminded in the meeting that most of God is silence. This is hard to handle. I like feedback, I like speaking and listening and interacting. Silence is my difficulty. SO all this to say, at the end of my meeting, I was given this book by W.E.B. Du Bois “Prayers for Dark People”.
I started reading it on the train this morning. There is a lot in these short readings, but I felt the need to write about this one prayer that ends this way:
the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious with you–the Lord lift up the Light of His Countenance upon you and give you War that out of the dust of battle and travail of soul, bitterness of defeat and anguish of sorrow, some day shall come forth the Perfect Soul.
I think this passage strikes me so much because I feel like the discernment process is war. It is an internal battle with the demons of insecurity, doubt, and uncertainty. To ask God a question feels more like a battle that will eventually yield a perfect soul, but I haven’t gotten to that part yet. I also think it is a better way to think about what a battle is. It isn’t a kind of war over power or things, but a fight for one to be better on the other side.
When I first started the discernment process I was continually reminded that I would have to work through not around my issues. Whatever was haunting me would have to faced, clawed through, battled and on the other side I would be better for it. I think that’s true–but I haven’t got to the other side yet. Who knows if I will for the next 20-30-40 years of life.
May all these painful battles yield the perfect soul. Amen.
Pursuing Call 