Reflection: On the Silent Cry…
‘The hope whose ground is not in certainty but in its abyss, its void; …
God who is not the winner but prefers the midnight of hunger…”
(From The Silent Cry by Dorothee Soelle)
On this day of Palms and Passion, the Sunday of Christ’s Paradox before entering into the holy week of the cross and Easter, Jesus rides on a donkey on the road to Jerusalem, in a story mixing exultation and exhaustion (among the people), glory for the nation-saving King and the suffering of the servant for all (that is Jesus).
I imagine that if these ongoing juxtapositions of the opposite realities of the life of Jesus had happened in my life, it would be exhausting. Think of Covid. One day, we feel that the end of this long pandemic tunnel is in view, but the next day that hope meets quick disappointment. The tunnel’s end, alas, is just another bend, one of the many curves of this long, winding passage. The light from the opposite end is still so dim. The repetition of hoping and letting go, “almost there” and “not yet”, further parches the dryness of our souls and deepens the weariness.
How dry is it? Here’s my story to tell: Just after New Year’s, I finally called the piano tuner to come to our house and check our Yamaha upright piano which we bought 2 years ago. When he was almost finished tuning, thinking that I would hear some compliment like “It’s a good piano.”, I asked quite inquisitively, “How is the piano?” The tuner’s face was not as cheerful as I would wish, and he said sternly, “Your piano is suffering. The humidity reader I put on the piano cannot even read how dry it is in here. It cannot read when humidity is below 15 percent. This is the driest home I have visited this month…” I was so shocked. What he meant was that the living room, where I was, is… a desert! A desert to both the piano and humans.
A humidifier in a Manitoban Winter home is just like the spiritual nourishment we need for the dryness of our souls through this Covid desert.
What today’s Gospel suggests, the spiritual nourishment we need for the dryness of our souls through this Covid desert, or for any other kind of spiritual desert we go through, is that Jesus offers the mystery of God’s paradox, and shows us how the contradictions of life’s betrayal and blessings can be - are indeed, part of God’s invitation for us. He’s saying that the paradox of palms and passion is the path!
What?
That exultation and exhaustion in repetition is not just a curse.
What?
What is important is our attitude, more than how rocky, parched, dry, or rough the road is. We don’t want to be on this rocky road, this endless tunnel. But see Jesus. He rides on a donkey on that road, at the pace of the colt which shares the burden with its mother, slow and patient and steady, the long road to Jerusalem, where the tombstone would never be removed without a miracle, and where Easter must bloom like the crocus in Isaiah’s prophecy, in the middle of a parched land, over-run by drought.
Some months after our dear member Linda Murray died, her partner, Gerry, called me and asked me to visit and help him give away some of her books in the house. Among many books, I found The Silent Cry, written by Dorothee Solle (explain about the author briefly) on Linda’s bookshelf. Her signature on the first page (show it on powerpoint) was special. Linda treated her books well, leaving every book to look brand-new.
Linda… I remember her through three unforgettable episodes. First one: One Sunday after service, she emerged from the assembled congregants, stopped in front of me, and said “Hi, I am Linda Murray. I’ve been quiet so you may not know me, but now I would like to introduce myself…”
The second scene was after one of the Advent services in 2017. (One month later, in 2018, she passed away.) She was looking up at me, her eyes overflowing with tears, and she said something like, “I cannot foresee what would come next, but I will be away for a while…” That time, I was told that she, the survivor of cancer long before, was suffering from the side-effects of compound medications.
The last scene was at a coffee shop - - our last visit. Linda opened the door and came in. She could not hide her exhaustion; she was visibly weaker, not even able to eat properly. But we had scheduled a meeting for coffee, so she dragged her tired body, out of curiosity and commitment to someone she cared about, and she was so hungry. I do not remember what we talked about that day, but I do remember how she taught me something words alone cannot convey. It was grace. That incredible human quality of honouring, being driven by conviction, commitment, and care even for just one friend. I firmly believe it is close to, it resembles the divine quality Jesus must have shown on the road to Jerusalem, the road of paradox, exultation and exhaustion, fulfilment and hunger - the profound hunger that does not come just from physical need but the deepest longing for communion within.
That’s the true Easter that passes on generation after generation, as long as God still creates new things amongst us and in creation on earth, (like a crocus as the sign of spring, still surrounded by melting snow), and as long as we plant the invincible name called Hope (which Emily Dickinson sings in her poem, “I sow my pageantry / In May —”). I remember, in December, a month before Linda departed from us, I asked her what message she would like to hear from the church, and she answered, “Hope”. At the time, a certain word-arrow pierced my brain at lightning speed which I didn’t say out loud — “How can anyone find hope from someone else‘s words, when it can only be generated from within by their own self…”
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| Crocus Damascenus Herbert (Crocus in the desert) |
But Ha Na, my soul, doubtful Thomas, you should know that Hope abounds, you can hear it, touch it, embrace it, convince yourself of it, when friends, family, creations are able to share it. Everyone has a piece of it, and we need each other. We can hear words of hope from each other. We definitely can hold it high with each other. We can expect it, express it, when we intentionally put our small pieces together to make the whole circle of hope, and therefore, hope abounds. It becomes the seed for us to plant in the ground. Hope ripens when we can share it. Hope breeds more hope.
Here are a few quotes from the book The Silent Cry about the paradox, the mystery, the hope of this day, of these times. Hope is distant, and at the same time it is also near, within our reach.
‘The hope whose ground is not in certainty but in its abyss, its void; …
God who is not the winner but prefers the midnight of hunger…”
(From The Silent Cry by Dorothee Soelle)
From the chapter, The Paradox
“One thinks of such expressions as ‘darklight’, ‘sadjoyous’ ‘bittersweet’, ‘eloquent silence’, ‘filled emptiness’, ‘acquired dispossession.’”
’Other bold word images are “whispering silence,’ “fertile desert,” “soundless tone,” and “silent cry”.’
“A song of the contemporary Dutch community-based movement contains this stanza:
The desert shall bloom, it shall laugh and rejoice,
Water shall run and it shall glisten,
The thirsty come and drink
The desert shall drink and it shall bloom.”
This is the traditional mystical image of the desert… inspired by Isaiah.
There is a poem, originating in the circle around the mystic, Meister Eckhart, and passed on anonymously, in which paradox comes in the form of verbs:
“O my soul, go out; God, come in!
When I flee from you, you come to me.
When I lose myself, I find you…”
Fleeing and coming, losing and finding become one process.
Palm and Passion,
Exultation and exhaustion,
The cross and Easter…
Become one process with God.
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