Because we are so limited, it is difficult for us to understand who we are and what happens to us. No human can ever see anything fully. All we see are aspects of things. Being human is like being in a room of almost total darkness. The walls are deep and impenetrable, but there are crevices which let in the outside light. Each time you look out, all you see is a single angle or aspect of something. From within this continual dark, you are unable to control or direct the things outside this room. You are utterly dependent on them to offer you different views of themselves. All you ever see are dimensions. This is why it is so difficult to be certain of anything. As the New Testament says, “Now we see in a glass darkly, then we shall see face to face.”
Most of the time we are so rushed in our daily routine that we are not even aware of how limited our seeing actually is. In this century, Cubist painters attempted to paint what an object might look like if it were seen simultaneously from all perspectives. Picasso and Kandinsky often take simple objects like guitars or animals and portray them in a fascinating multiplicity of different visions. If you could only step back from your life and view it from different angles, you would gain a whole different sense of yourself. Aspects of you that may disappoint and sadden you from one perspective may be perfectly integrated in the image of you as seen from another angle. Sometimes things that really belong in your life do not seem to fit because the way you view them is too narrow. We see a good illustration of this in friendship. You have different friends. No two of your friends see you in exactly the same way. Each one brings a different part of your soul alive. Even though your friends all like you, they may not like each other at all. This is one of the sad and joyful things about the wake when someone dies. Different friends have diverse stories of the departed. A funeral involves the creation in a stricken community of a narrative whose ending makes a beginning possible. All the stories are like different pieces that combine to build a mosaic of presence. All the stories go to make up the one story. This is like mystical prayer. This wholesome and inclusive seeing, in which all the differences can be seen to belong together, is what mystical prayer brings. Mystical prayer brings you into the deepest intimacy with the Divine. Your soul receives the kiss of God. Such closeness has great beauty and frightening tenderness. Embraced in this belonging, all talk and theory of the Divine seem so pale and sound so distant.
Mystical prayer is never trapped. Most of our viewpoints are trapped like magnets to the same point on the surface. Mystical prayer teaches us a rhythm of seeing that is dynamic and free and full of hospitality. Far below and beyond the fear and limitation of the ego, mystical prayer teaches us to see with the wild eye of the soul. It sees the secret multiplicity of presences that are active at the edge of our normal field of vision. In this kind of prayer you will find what Paul Murray describes as
A ground within you
no one has ever seen
a world beyond the limits
of your dream’s horizon.
There are no words for the deepest things. Words become feeble when mystery visits and prayer moves into silence. In post-modern culture the ceaseless din of chatter has killed our acquaintance with silence. Consequently, we are stressed and anxious. Silence is a fascinating presence. Silence is shy; it is patient and never draws attention to itself. Without the presence of silence, no word could ever be said or heard. Our thoughts constantly call up new words. We become so taken with words that we barely notice the silence, but the silence is always there. The best words are born in the fecund silence that minds the mystery.
As Seamus Heaney writes in
When you pray, you visit the kind innocence of your soul. This is a pure place of unity which the noise of life can never disturb. You enter the secret temple of your deepest belonging. Only in this temple can your hungriest longing find stillness and peace. This is summed up in that lovely line from the Bible: “Be still and know that I am God.” In stillness, the silence of the Divine becomes intimate.
