The Place You Have Been Given

A Dialogue with Abba Arsenius on Formation, Silence, and Freedom

The disciple came to the old man late in the afternoon. Arsenius was sitting outside his cell, mending a worn basket. The disciple bowed and waited.

The old man did not look up.

At last the disciple spoke.

Disciple:

Father, I have been waiting for my life to begin.

Arsenius stopped working.

Arsenius:

Where have you been living?

Disciple:

That is not what I mean. I have sought God for many years. I thought by now He would have shown me the place where I might give myself entirely to Him. Instead, my life has grown smaller.

There are fewer things now. Fewer people. Fewer plans.

Much of what once seemed important has fallen away.

And yet the place I thought I was seeking remains beyond my reach.

Arsenius resumed his work.

Arsenius:

Perhaps you have mistaken the place.

Disciple:

What do you mean?

Arsenius:

You have been asking God where your formation will occur.

Perhaps He has answered you.

Disciple:

Here?

Arsenius:

Where else?

The disciple was silent.

Disciple:

But there is nothing here, Father. Only ordinary things. Small obediences. Interruptions. Responsibilities I did not choose. Days that seem to disappear without anything being accomplished.

Arsenius:

And you think the desert is made of sand?

The disciple looked at him.

Arsenius:

The desert begins wherever a man can no longer arrange his life according to his own will.

There God begins to teach him.

You imagine formation to be the acquisition of something. Often it is the loss of things.

Your plans.

Your importance.

Your explanations.

Your imagined future.

Even the image you have made of the man you thought you would become.

These are difficult lessons because there is nothing to show for them.

Disciple:

Then how do I know anything is happening?

Arsenius:

Why must you know?

The disciple lowered his eyes.

Arsenius:

A seed does not dig itself from the earth to examine its progress.

Remain where you have been planted.

Disciple:

But what if the years are being lost?

Arsenius looked at him now.

Arsenius:

Nothing offered to God is lost.

Nothing.

Not the prayer you could barely pray.

Not the obedience no one saw.

Not the hour given to another when you wished to be alone.

Not the plans relinquished.

Not the door that remained closed.

Not even the years in which you thought nothing was happening.

If they were given to God, they have entered eternity.

Disciple:

Yet sometimes I feel as though I myself am disappearing.

Arsenius:

You are.

The disciple looked startled.

The old man smiled.

Arsenius:

You asked God to save you. Did you think He would preserve everything?

There are things in us that cannot enter the Kingdom.

The need to be seen.

The need to be understood.

The need to justify ourselves.

The need to determine what our offering should accomplish.

Even the need to know what God intends to make of us.

Silence begins to take these things away.

At first this feels like death.

Later you discover it was freedom.

Disciple:

Freedom from what?

Arsenius:

From yourself.

And therefore freedom for God.

The disciple sat beside him.

For some time neither spoke.

A breeze moved across the desert.

Disciple:

Then perhaps I have misunderstood silence too.

I thought silence meant withdrawing from the things that kept me from God.

Arsenius:

That is only its beginning.

True silence comes when you cease arguing with the life God has permitted you to receive.

Then the heart becomes quiet even while the hands are occupied.

You may wash a bowl.

Tend the sick.

Open a door.

Sit beside someone who is afraid.

Rise in the night because another needs you.

None of these things breaks silence if the heart remains with God.

But a man may live alone in a cave and fill the whole desert with the noise of his own will.

Disciple:

Then the cell can be anywhere?

Arsenius:

When God gives it to you.

Do not manufacture a desert.

Receive the one He gives.

Disciple:

And what of the future?

There are still things I believe God may be asking of me. Should I stop desiring them?

Arsenius:

No.

But let God purify your desire until you can receive either its fulfillment or its death with the same thanksgiving.

Then you will know whether you desired God or merely the life in which you imagined yourself belonging to Him.

The disciple’s eyes filled with tears.

Disciple:

That seems very hard.

Arsenius:

It is formation.

Again they fell silent.

The sun had nearly disappeared.

Finally the disciple said:

Disciple:

Father, I came wanting you to tell me where my life was leading.

Arsenius:

And now?

The disciple looked across the desert.

Disciple:

I think perhaps I am being asked to stop looking beyond the place where God is meeting me.

Arsenius nodded.

Arsenius:

Remain.

Let everything offered to Him disappear into Him.

First you will discover silence.

Then, if God is merciful, you will discover that you too have disappeared.

And you will be afraid.

But remain a little longer.

For beyond that disappearance is a freedom you cannot yet imagine.

There the heart no longer asks,

What will become of me?

It asks only,

How may I love You here?

And when that becomes enough, my son,

the desert has done its work.