Stil(l) Shouting Silently

So I’m chilling on this week of spirituality in the valley where Heaven meets Earth (Hemel en Aarde vallei near Hermanus) when silence hits me in the face. But don’t let silence fool you, it doesn’t hit like a girl. In the contrary it kind of dances like a butterfly but stings like…many bees. At once. In your face. Over and over again. Stinging. You. Face.

While I’m writing this I’m sitting in a prayer hut that has been occupied by many significant South Africans before myself that have all been on this journey of getting to know silence. We had many lectures on what spirituality is and specifically what makes Christian spirituality so ‘Christian’ after all. We discussed what Jesus’ spirituality was made up of and even had to learn to love silence ourselves with silent meals a regular element in our journey towards finding the core of silence.

During our time at Volmoed I had the privilege to listen to many speakers about many topics, but one struck me in the heart. Made me bleed to find out more of. Made me yearn for more than just Wikipedia.

The Desert spirituality.

This refers to a group of people who lived in Egypt that chose to form some sort of community in the desert. Anthony the Great was one of the more well-known desert fathers of this specific spirituality. Anthony and the other hermits living in the desert were classified by some to be running away from the reality because they chose to live in the desert far away from the city life where evil was taking over the lives of many people in the 2nd century. Cowards who wanted the glory life with God but didn’t want anything to do with the realness of the reality in the cities.

I also thought so. But then a Dr. Lisel Joubert made me ask myself what exactly is reality? What is the most real thing we all have to live with?

Ego. The Greek for ‘I’ or ‘me”. Myself. The most real thing we all have to live with is ourselves. Crazy.

I thought these desert cowards wanted to run away from the cruelness of the realities in the city, but they were running into the most real and scariest of places on the planet. To the core of themselves. They went there, some in communities some in solitaire, to become face to face with themselves. To become a singleness in heart and eye as they would call it. Singleness of heart referring to the times our ego runs over our moral or ethical thoughts where we deny others and choose ourselves above them. And singleness of the eye referring to the many times we judged others through just looking at them.

They wanted to get rid of themselves by finding themselves…

Now you might ask what the difference is between a Buddhist finding Nirvana and a Christian finding themselves? Well, in actual fact Buddhists become empty in themselves for the sake of being emptied of themselves. Christians become empty to be fulfilled again.

Anyway, the fact is not about this above mentioned question.

I just couldn’t believe these desert blokes were able to live with themselves and be content. God was actually enough for these guys. They were, in their silence, a witness to the people in the city that God still works in people.

The actual question in my heart is why God isn’t enough for us anymore? Why isn’t church doing it for many people anymore? Why is our lives filled with worthless gadgets, credit cards and people but our hearts are empty? Yearning for something to come and touch it?

I surely don’t know the answers to these questions, but what I can say is that these questions resonated with my heart in silence. Silence, be it in our homes, work places or in the desert is necessary. It’s been replaced with music, TV shows and sometimes even church.