A Quiet Word with Abba Arsenius

Disciple

Father, I feel drawn toward obscurity. Not dramatically, not in protest, not as an escape. More like a gravity that keeps pulling me out of view. Yet even this desire troubles me. I catch myself watching it, measuring it, asking whether it is authentic or just another refined form of self-regard.

St. Arsenius

You speak too much about yourself already.

Disciple

That is precisely what I fear.

St. Arsenius

Then learn to fear less and to listen more.

When I was in the palace, I spoke carefully so that I would be heard. When I came to the desert, I learned to be silent so that I would disappear. Between these two, the heart is taught its true measure.

Disciple

But how does one move into obscurity without making it a project? Even silence can become something one admires in oneself.

St. Arsenius

Do you know why I fled?

It was not because I hated men. It was because I loved God too clumsily among them. Praise fed me. Recognition shaped me. Even virtue was bent by the gaze of others. I did not go to the desert to become hidden. I went because I could no longer breathe where I was seen.

Obscurity was not my aim. It was the consequence.

Disciple

So one should not seek it directly?

St. Arsenius

If you seek obscurity, you will find yourself again standing in the center, counting how far you have withdrawn.

The soul does not move into hiddenness by willpower but by obedience to what quiets it. When something disturbs your peace, do not analyze it. Step back. When something inflames your sense of importance, do not argue with it. Let it pass without reply.

This is how the desert begins. Not in geography, but in restraint.

Disciple

Yet there are responsibilities, relationships, even words that must be spoken. How can one grow obscure without neglecting love?

St. Arsenius

Obscurity is not absence. It is weightlessness.

Remain where love places you, but do not carry yourself heavily there. Speak when obedience or charity requires it. Fall silent when your own necessity urges you to speak.

The man who loves obscurity does not withdraw from others. He withdraws from self-assertion within every encounter.

Disciple

There is a fear in me that if I stop attending to myself, something essential will be lost. That I will fade into nothing.

St. Arsenius

Yes.

And what of it?

You fear losing what cannot be kept. What is essential is not sustained by attention but by surrender. When I prayed, “Lord, lead me in the way of salvation,” I did not mean toward achievement. I meant away from myself.

The soul that consents to being forgotten does not vanish. It is gathered.

Disciple

But how does one live this peacefully, without strain?

St. Arsenius

Strain comes from trying to arrive somewhere.

Live as one who is passing through his own life quietly. Do not hurry to interpret your movements. Do not narrate your interior state. Let God read you.

Accept small humiliations without commentary. Allow good deeds to be unfinished in the eyes of others. Let misunderstandings rest without correction unless love demands otherwise.

These things do not feel heroic. That is why they heal.

Disciple

And prayer?

St. Arsenius

Prayer will simplify itself if you allow it.

At first you bring many words because you are still present to yourself. Later you bring fewer words because you are tired of hearing yourself speak. In time, even the wish to pray becomes prayer enough.

Obscurity is not a technique. It is the soul consenting to be led where it no longer explains itself.

Disciple

Father, will this make me useless?

St. Arsenius

It will make you true.

The world does not need your self-conscious holiness. God does not need your visible striving. What is required of you is this: flee what inflates you, remain where love places you, and sit quietly with God until even the need to be known by Him dissolves into trust.

Then obscurity will no longer concern you. You will be too busy resting.

Disciple

Pray for me, Abba, that I may learn this without violence to my soul.

St. Arsenius

Be at peace. Nothing is being taken from you.

You are only being relieved of the burden of appearing.