Remaining Without Vanishing

Father Charbel Abernethy
Jan 5
4 min read

A rule of discernment for a soul learning to empty itself without erasing itself

There is a way of giving oneself to God that leads into life and there is a way that quietly slips toward disappearance. They can feel similar at first. Both speak the language of surrender. Both speak of letting go. But one is the Cross and the other is a kind of spiritual anesthesia. If I do not learn to tell them apart I will call numbness peace and call collapse humility and slowly I will mistake vanishing for holiness.

Holy self emptying has a particular weight to it. Even when it wounds it remains warm. It keeps me present. It keeps me accountable. It keeps me praying even if prayer is dry. It leaves me capable of love even when love costs me something. Nullification tastes different. It brings fog. It flattens desire. It whispers that nothing matters very much anymore and offers a strange relief in not having to be anyone at all. When that movement appears it must be named plainly before God. Lord this is not repentance. This is erasure.

The Fathers never taught us to go dead. They did not flee the world in order to become less human. They fled in order to become human again. Ascesis is not self harm. It is medicine. Detachment that makes the heart colder is not from God. Silence that hollows the soul rather than gathering it is not from God. Any practice that makes me less able to weep less able to love less able to stand before another person without hiding is not the fruit of grace no matter how severe or convincing it sounds.

Nullification feeds on abstraction. It grows when prayer becomes a void and surrender becomes an idea rather than a life. The answer is almost offensively simple. One act of embodied fidelity each day. Something small and real. Making the bed. Eating like a human being. Walking outside for ten minutes. Lighting the lampada and standing before the icons even when nothing stirs. Offering one concrete mercy. These things tether the soul to the Incarnation. God saves us in the body not away from it.

Prayer too needs a handrail. When silence turns into blankness I do not push harder. I take hold of a rope the Church places in my hands. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit. O God come to my assistance. One psalm line repeated slowly. Not to feel something but to remain present. Nullification wants prayer to become an empty room. The Church gives us a phrase that keeps the lamp lit.

True surrender always leads me into greater accountability not less. It draws me toward obedience that can be seen touched and tested. False surrender makes me private untouchable and self justifying. It tells me I am beyond needing guidance. That alone is enough to expose it. The desert was never me and God alone. Even hermits remain under a blessing. Nullification thrives where no one can see me. Grace keeps at least one living relationship in the frame.

There is also a relief that must be discerned. Grace brings a relief that feels like being held. Nullification brings a relief that feels like permission to disappear. If I notice the second I do not panic but I do not call it God. I bring it into the light with one honest sentence. I think part of me wants to vanish. That confession itself is medicine.

What I must ask for is not contempt for myself but compunction. Contempt hardens. Compunction softens. Contempt erases. Compunction opens the heart to tears mercy patience and endurance. Compunction allows me to remain small without trying to be nothing.

The simplest test remains this. After an hour of so called surrender am I more able to love. More able to do the next right thing. More able to ask forgiveness and to ask for help. If not then what I have called surrender may in fact be a spiritualized exit. The correction is not intensity. It is return. Return to the face of Christ. Return to the Jesus Prayer. Return to one small obedience. Return to the body. Return to the Church.

Christ did not become man so that I could disappear. He became man to raise me from the dead. I am not saved by vanishing. I am saved by being found in Him.

Lord Jesus Christ

You did not take flesh to make me disappear

You took flesh to give me life

When I confuse numbness with peace expose it gently

When I confuse erasure with humility correct me with mercy

Give me compunction that softens me

Not contempt that erases me

Teach me to remain present

To bear my name before You without fear

To accept being small without trying to be nothing

Keep me in the warmth of repentance

In the light of obedience