We must answer a fundamental question during withdraw, one that will change the orientation of our very life: to be or not to be? When we get away from all the crashing sounds and urgent pressures we understand the greater mystery.
Our life is silenced in the overwhelming flow of life. And we are really given the legitimate choice to be or not to be. Life could and will go on without us. We could with great monkish fervor go out withdrawing into prayer and meditation.
One understands in meditation that we are not essential. We learn our humble place in the universe which can leave us wanting. Yet we are still given the choice: to be or not to be? “What do you want?” still reverberates in the halls of our soul.
That is really the question. And there is ultimately no one else who can answer that question except us. There is no right answer, no best answer, no only for me answer. There is simply the lingering wait for our response. What will we do?
The question echoes on into eternity. What will we do? It awakens something within us. Some primeval calling to the source of life itself. Soon we are like Moses standing before God at the burning bush with no one to witness the event.
Soon it is just He and us. No one else can witness. And many, of course, will not believe. But it is hard. It is hard to ignore 10 rounds of plagues as vindication. Those willing to hear and able to obey get the strange satisfaction of seeing it play out.
That’s why no one can go there with you. No one else can vindicate the truly courageous, creative experiments. Not even those closest to us can know the intensity of the flames in that bush. But it is enough to convince us forever.
Or at least till through to the first plague. Give me a staff and some help eventually and I am good to go. Really? That’s it. That’s it! That’s still it today. We are given nothing else. But it’s enough. It really is. Trust what you see there. It happened.
The Creative Spirit knows what we need, and what we do not. There are so many things we want to see that we do not need. In fact, many of the things we would prefer to already have would essential rob us of the struggle we need.
We get enough, and only enough. There is mercy in our limitations. Whatever great feats we are being called into we are called within our limits. We can not avoid or escape ourselves in the process. We must become ourselves.
So slowly but surely we hone in on the very essence of being. We say “yes” to life and all that it might bring us. We step forward into the mystery that is ourselves. We believe without seeing. We change the way we see life, before we see it.
That is the moment of true being. That is when life gets very good. That is the good stuff. When we zero in through faith on who we are and what we can become something shakes loose. In the unnerving off-balance we find hope.