On God's Silence

“Silence is the first language of God.”

—St. John of the Cross

Don’t let his silence leave you voiceless.
Don’t let your anger, either. 
Scream to the winter skies. Say it all. 
Nothing you can shout, no profanity 
divides the wholeness of his heart. 
	    He has 	      all eternity. 
            He is                 all eternity. 
And all of time that you can fill or feel 
he’s set apart for you—all his powers, 
at hand, ready, all his gifts. 

And he gifts you this silence—
silence, like a canvas against which 
you may throw your every color. All of them.

Silence, like a wrestling mat or boxing ring. 
The god you fight is the god 
whose mettle you measure, blow by blow. 

Step into the ring, gloves off, eyes blazing. 
Face the unanswering one. 
Look up, throw down.

His silence—it is not the danger; yours is. 
So shout your curses at the silent god. 
Say everything you know he should have done or said. 
Be eloquent. Be vile. 

But be there ready, waiting
in the oily dust of beige-gray, 
anything-but-sunrise skies. 
Be there with your manifesto and your megaphone,
with your pillow-muffled primal screams
to loose at last. 

not this not me not them not now how come
come back why this oh god oh god why this, not this 

And then, be still.
Be ready to receive 	
             the emptiness, 
             the vast expanse, 
             the quiet cosmos, 
                          turning in its patient arc of eons, 
                          far beyond your miniscule existence. 

The ratio of your life or pain 
to all of God’s domain 	   is nothing. Nothing. 
But that of what you feel 
to who he is, 			           is everything. Everything. 

Eternity is his name, and Endless. 
Match the harsh infinity within you to his own.
There is only ever one abyss. 
Go down it, down until you see him. 
See him all gobsmacked, stunned— 
not for all the sins of humankind—
but just for your hurt, a hurt that has no bounds. 
He can hardly take it in.
But he takes it, accepts it—all your hell.

The god who weeps, 
he weeps endlessly with you. 
The full infinity. The full insanity. 

The aching without limit aches in him. 
His groan, your groan. 
His cross, your cross; 
your cross, his cross. 

You meet him in the bitter garden. 
He meets you in your endless anguish. 
There, connected, shattered all across the ironies.

Here is where the traitor silence 
faithfully betrays the lowered God. 

Listen to me!
God holds his silence 
so that He can feel it all, don’t you see? 
             Your emptiness, 
             his emptiness. 
You are forsaken; you are together. 

His silence is God listening to you. 
His silence is his reverence, his awe 
at just how dark, how broken is your world. 
His silence is his offering to you, not refusal. 

Accept the bitter grace and 
break with him the bread of silence. 

Now fill it! Sing! Use all your words! 
Don’t you see he’s made wide-open space for you?
Behold how he withholds! pulls back, makes way, 
allows your words, your will.

Don’t feel neglected, 
as though this were a human, mortal silence: 
reproach, passivity, or ignorance. 
No. He doesn’t deal in pettiness. 
His silence, it is never small. 

You be the agent. 
You, the answerer—
the sum of your divinity is never told. 
You share so much infinity. 
You are mostly divine. So, go on.

Be the generous one, 
            anywhere you choose, to 
            anyone at all. 
Be the gracious one, 	
            the mother goddess granting milk and love, 
            the angel who shows up, with wings or not,
            the father ordering the fatted calf be killed. 

You have his voice, his hands, his heart, 
if not his every power. 

Feel him filling wide the space 
you thought was empty. 
Touch the silence, enter it. 

Revere his reverence for you. 
Give him space and 
time to grieve your grief, and not just some of it;
time to lend your longing more eternities, 
time for him to reel and retch at those regrets,
the ones you’ve only dared to feel in doses.

Three days returned his body, but 
do we know how far his spirit flew,
flung headlong down the vast abyss? 

And tell me, 
Would not the stun of so much grief 
arrest your words? 
Would not the ache of holding back 
from healing every human hurt 
make you mute? My God! O, Abba!

Dumbfounded 	in the garden, in the crowd, 
                                at the trial, on the cross— 
and then,	emptied into emptiness, 
the void 	        approaching him, 
                        engulfing him, 
                        becoming him. 

Only silence widens far enough. 

The quiet lets you listen 
for his breathing. There. Hear it? 

Begin to breathe along with him: 
long, even rhythms, surf against the sand. 
But also, catch his catch breaths, and 
those sighs that have no size. 
His gasping shudders echo through 
the space you thought was empty. 
Touch that semi-silence, 
enter it without a word, 
with nothing, with everything.

A forehead rests against another’s.
Hands come up to cup a face. 
Can we afford to fall to words like this?
There are not words enough, nor time. 

So let this silence hold. 
It 	     holds us as we’re holding in, 
             holding out, holding on, 
             holding him, beholding him 
                        in mute magnitude, his and ours. 

Hold fast this silence. He’s giving all of it to you. 
So take the gift. 
Feel his silence, heft the weight inside of waiting. 
Measure silence out of measure, all of it you can. 
There’s always more. 
Feel the silence as it ripens, 
             as it swallows you in sweetness, 
             as it empties out the emptiness. 
Whisper thank you, thank you,
my god it is too much it is enough.