I have been reading 1 and 2 Kings, and what has caught my attention is that which is not said – the long intervals between events; years, days and months of waiting. Elijah who walks forty days and nights through the desert, fearing for his life, his only luggage his wish to die and the memory of the four-hundred slain prophets of Baal, blood and bodies, violence and death. Forty days and nights; alone in the silence. Questioning the meaning of any and all his works, his whole dedication, despairing. Then, he comes to the Mountain, and the very strange question: “Why are you here?” Wind, earthquake, fire. Then, a gentle whisper, and again – the strange question: “Why are you here?”
The Shunammite woman who has been waiting for so long that she has begun to dread hope – hope which has always been followed by disappointment, hope that is unable to rise anymore, hope that inflicts incurable wounds. “Please, do not mislead your servant!” And even after its fulfillment, her hope is weak, feeble, ready to retreat at the face of first adversity. “Did I ask you for a son, my Lord? Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?” Now disappointment has grief and loss as its companions. Yet God sees her, hears her, answers her: she receives back her son. But the journey is not not easy or smooth: rather is filled with long breaks of silence, free falling into the darkness, the difficult, painful work of hope.
The widow at Zarepath who has been starving for maybe weeks, months, years, watching his only son wither away, unable to feed him. Existence which is mere expectation of death; her future has been closed, and the only image left is that of herself and her son, following her husband to the grave. Alone, with no one to help, as the drought goes on and on and on and on. As the days repeat, repeat, repeat themselves. Future has disappeared into the darkness. And then comes this man of God with a request that feels like a mockery, the last jest of destiny: “Bring me, please, a piece of bread.” She informs him of her plans – a final meal for her and her son and then they will die. Perhaps there is, in her voice, a hint of sordid humor, cynical irony, ‘you came to the wrong house, man of God, here is only death, but if you wish to join us for our last meal, please feel free to do so’. Elijah does not blame her – there is again, that gentleness – but simply asks her to hope one more time. And perhaps, having nothing to lose, she obeys. One last time.
A miracle. Bread and oil, enough for everyone. Future is no longer impossible. The veil of darkness is lifted. The poor woman who has been dependent on other people’s help is now elevated. She receives a calling, a task, a sense of purpose: she is not merely a passive recipient of help, but she is the one upon whom the man of God is now dependent. And yet, this hope, too, is weak, desperate, ready to retreat. “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” Words stemming from the raw pain of the soul. And yet – that gentleness again – she, too, receives back her son and her hope.
But these long, desperate silences. The in-between, the long intervals of waiting, between promise and fulfillment, exile and return, between prophecy and actuality. Indeed, this is the pattern of exile. The Long Saturday, the long stretches of silence, filled with anxiety, confusion, fear. The desert where forgetfulness eats away the memory of miracle, when the past moments of Glory are received in grey, where they lose their shape as their memory morphs into meaninglessness. Where hope quivers, faints, weakens.
“Your path led through the seas, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.” [Ps. 77.19]The Scriptures are full of waiting, seasons of life that do not seem to make any sense. Often, as in life, also in Scriptures the stories are confusing and full of loose ends, inexplicable events – they are not perfect circles, unbroken narratives. In reading Scripture we skim through these seasons of waiting so easily, we long for the event, for something to happen.
Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth I have suffered and been close to death; I have borne your terrors and am in despair. You terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. You have taken from me friend and neighbor – darkness is my closest friend. [Ps. 88.14-18]
We rarely truly consider the long journeys, the long years of confusion and disappointment, the loneliness and affliction – the pit from which so many psalms rise. We “neglect and belittle the desert”, as T.S. Eliot puts it, continuing (in Choruses from ‘the Rock’): “The desert is not remote in southern tropics / The desert is not only around the corner / The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you / The desert is in the heart of you brother.”
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’, and my foes will rejoice when I fall. [Ps. 13.1-4]
I’m reminded again of Henri de Lubac: “Only those who have suffered badly have truly suffered.” It is hard as we come to the end of ourselves, as we run out of all strength – when there is truly nothing left, but the empty, humming silence. It is hard – make no mistake – and in the stories we tell, those are the parts we skip. But it is hard. When you’ve lost all perspective, when the horizon disappears, you lose your sense of direction and it seems as if you were simply swirling in an endless whirlpool, free falling. When you’ve lost your ability to see any point in the struggle, any benefit in the trouble, any wisdom in the adversity.
Gently He comes, then. A voice asks: “Why are you here?” A child is born. Bread and oil are enough to feed the whole family. He lifts the needy from the ash heap, the poor from the dust. Gently, gently His faithfulness asserts itself, turns mourning into rejoicing, gradually, like the dawn that overcomes the night. Intervals end. A new song is sung, a psalm of thanksgiving.