Ch. 3 The Boot
Theme Song: Just When I Needed You Most - Randy VanWarmer
"But what am I? / An infant crying in the night; / An infant crying for the light, / And with no language but a cry." ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam AHH"
And then God went away.
When I left for college, I felt confident that my suffering days would be behind me and that I would emerge triumphant over my circumstances. Instead, I fell apart. Of course, I turned to God but I no longer experienced God's being with me. The constant conversation that was my practice of the presence had become a monologue. I was attending a Catholic college so I sought out the places where I thought God's presence would be strongest. I made nightly pilgrimages to the fountain by the monastery where I prayed and pleaded with God to be with me. I sat alone in the basilica but consolation and peace evaded me. I examined my conscience over and over again, almost madly, trying to discover what I might have done to turn God away. My life was falling apart which was unexpected; but, much moreover, God had abandoned me which was devastating.
I didn't know what to do so I kept doing what I had always done which had always worked. I kept trying to engage God in conversation. I kept returning to sacred places. I made repeated trips to my family's church since I had always been at home with God there. I kept trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I kept begging God not to leave me. I went on this way for nearly three years. No reply. I was alone and I was unable to stand alone. For three years, I fell down a dark and scary tunnel all the while reaching out for God and God never reached back. My theme song for this chapter is a sappy and melodramatic number about a shattered heart. That choice was deliberate for there was nothing noble or dignified about this experience for me. I was a troubled teenage girl in full heartbreak: "God, you left me just when I needed you most!" "Really, how could You?" Finally, there came the night when the door to the basilica was locked. I slumped down by the door defeated. I was locked out of God's love.
I felt completely blindsided but I was not completely blindsided. One blah evening during my senior year of high school, while studying history which was a bore for me, I experienced my second God event. I will go ahead and tell you now that I do not believe that God actively intervenes in the course of things. To believe otherwise starts an avalanche of questions about evil that challenges God's goodness. I won't stand for God's goodness to be challenged because I still love God and always have. My concept of God has changed but my love of God has not. Anyhow, God visited me in dramatic fashion that night while I was studying history. My room glowed in orange-yellow and warmth washed over me. I felt extreme bliss and delight resting in total confidence that all was well. I intensely experienced God's love. Then I knew, I did not hear a voice ~ I never heard a voice ~ but I knew that I was supposed to grab a note card on my desk and write "Thank you God! I love you!!" and keep that note card forever. While I was grateful for the visit from God, this note card business made no sense to me at the time. Of course I loved God; I had been practicing the presence of God for nearly fourteen years. I had considered becoming a nun. Every day in every way, I loved God and felt God's love for me. Why in the world would I need a silly note card to remind me? But I wrote the note card and I kept it.
Now I had the note card but I did not have God. Bad trade.
I guess this is as good a time as any to take a break to talk about God events, the practice of the presence of God, and mystical experiences. My two God events at ages four and seventeen felt like unexpected interventions. I did not seek them. It was more like God just barged into the room without knocking and gave me a big gift even though it wasn't my birthday. At seventeen, I was not in any notable emotional turmoil nor was I in a fervent state of prayer or particular pursuit of God. I was bored studying history. It would be a whole lot easier for me intellectually if I could explain away the event by saying I was in great need so my mind generated this "event" to placate me but that is not how it happened. If God events were like dramatic interventions then the practice of the presence was like God and me being an old married couple who could speak without speaking. It was warm, comforting, and constant. Mystical experiences came a bit later and still come today. They are neither constant like the practice of the presence nor dramatic like God events; however, they do involve the experience of warmth and extreme bliss and delight resting in total confidence that all is well. Mystical experiences also feel like a melting of boundaries and merging with All That Is. They are beautiful but fleeting. I cherish them for replenishing my well and keeping me in touch with The Eternal but I cannot count on them day-to-day. Now, back to my teenage life...
For three years, I just kept hammering away trying to get God back using the same tools that had worked for me before. Over the course of those years, my hammer grew heavier and I swung it less fervently because I became less convinced that I was going to get God back. The problem was that I had nothing else. God was my foundation. My foundation had been ripped out and I had no replacement. No one can be secure without a foundation and I was a teenage girl who was falling apart before God left. In time, I became too depressed to swing the hammer at all and I walked willingly into my dark night of the soul.
