When No One Answers

The desert begins when even the voices that once sustained us fall silent

“O God, do not abandon me. I have done nothing good in Your sight, but according to Your goodness, let me now make a beginning.”

— Abba Arsenius

There comes a loneliness that is not cured by company.

It comes when the voices that once steadied us grow quiet.

A spiritual father does not answer.

A friend does not understand.

A community no longer knows what to do with us.

Those who once seemed able to recognize the path cannot tell us where it leads.

And eventually a more terrible thought rises:

Perhaps I am alone.

The desert fathers knew this place.

They did not sentimentalize it.

They did not rush to tell the monk that everything would soon become clear. They did not promise that if he prayed faithfully enough someone would arrive with an explanation.

Sometimes no one came.

Sometimes God Himself seemed not to come.

And the monk remained.

That was the terrible school of the desert.

We speak easily about wanting God alone until God begins removing the things by which we have avoided Him alone.

We want God—but with reassurance.

God—but with a spiritual father answering us.

God—but with the approval of those we respect.

God—but with some indication that our sacrifices have meaning.

God—but with a path we can recognize.

Then one by one these things become uncertain.

And we cry out:

Where is everyone?

But beneath that cry another question has been waiting:

If everyone becomes silent, is God enough?

Not God as an idea.

Not God as a theological answer.

Not God as the final piece in the explanation of our lives.

God.

The living God.

The One before whom there may be nothing left to say.

Arsenius knew this.

He had fled the world seeking God, and still there were moments when he cried:

Do not abandon me.

This should destroy one of our most dangerous spiritual illusions.

Holiness does not mean never feeling abandoned.

Faith does not mean never entering darkness.

Prayer does not guarantee the felt presence of God.

Sometimes prayer brings us to the place where every consolation disappears and the only prayer remaining is:

Do not abandon me.

And even that prayer may receive no immediate answer.

Then what?

Arsenius tells us.

Let me make a beginning.

Not:

Explain my life.

Not:

Show me where this ends.

Not:

Tell me what I will become.

Not:

Restore everything I have lost.

Only:

Let me begin.

This is the fierceness of the desert.

When you cannot understand your life, do the thing given to you.

When you cannot see tomorrow, obey today.

When prayer feels empty, say the Name.

When your heart is restless, remain.

When no one answers, do not begin shouting merely to make the silence disappear.

Remain.

Anthony was assaulted by darkness and thoughts. The answer given him was almost offensively simple.

Work.

Pray.

Work.

Pray.

The modern mind despises such answers because it wants interpretation.

What does this mean?

Where is God leading me?

What should I become?

How will this be resolved?

But the desert often gives no answer to these questions.

It gives you a rope to weave.

A floor to sweep.

A sick person to wash.

A meal to prepare.

A psalm to pray.

A Name to repeat.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Until the demand to understand your life begins to die.

This is where abandonment can become something stranger than loneliness.

It can become purification.

For there are things we call faith that are actually bargains with God.

I will follow You if You show me where we are going.

I will surrender if I know what will remain.

I will enter the darkness if someone trustworthy assures me that I am on the right path.

But God may eventually touch even this.

And then comes the terrible mercy.

No map.

No explanation.

No guarantee.

No voice from heaven.

Only the place where you are standing.

And God.

This is why St. Silouan’s word is so severe:

Keep your mind in hell and despair not.

Do not flee the truth of your poverty.

Do not manufacture consolation.

Do not call darkness light.

Do not pretend that loneliness does not hurt.

Do not pretend that silence is peaceful when it feels unbearable.

Descend into the truth.

But there is one thing you must not do.

Do not despair.

You may say:

I cannot see God.

But you may not therefore conclude:

God is not here.

You may say:

No one understands me.

But you may not therefore conclude:

I have been forsaken.

You may say:

I do not know what happens next.

But you may not therefore conclude:

I must make something happen.

That last temptation is subtle.

Sometimes our frantic search for answers is simply our terror of abandonment disguised as discernment.

Another letter.

Another conversation.

Another possibility.

Another plan.

Another person who might finally tell us what our life means.

The desert father would watch this for a while.

Then he would probably say:

Enough.

Go back to your cell.

Do the work given to you.

Say your prayers.

Love the person standing before you.

Let tomorrow remain with God.

There is a form of spiritual maturity that begins when we stop demanding witnesses to our obedience.

No one may understand.

No one may applaud.

No one may even notice.

The work may appear small.

The world may consider it wasted.

The Church herself, in her human structures, may not know what to call it.

But heaven does not require a title for love.

Perhaps you are caring for someone who cannot repay you.

Perhaps your world has become very small.

Perhaps the great things you once imagined doing for God have disappeared.

Perhaps your monastery is a bedroom.

Your cloister a hallway.

Your bell the sound of someone needing you.

Your office the Jesus Prayer whispered while doing what must be done.

Do not despise this.

You asked God for a desert.

Do not complain because there is sand.

You asked to belong to Him.

Do not be surprised when He loosens your grip upon everything by which you had learned to recognize yourself.

Priest.

Monk.

Teacher.

Writer.

Guide.

Friend.

Son.

Even these can become places where the heart secretly seeks shelter.

God does not necessarily destroy them.

But He may ask:

Who are you when none of them can console you?

There is only one answer that survives the desert.

I am Yours.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

And perhaps even that eventually becomes too many words.

Then there is only the Name.

Jesus.

And the person God has placed before you.

And today’s obedience.

And the silence.

This may feel like abandonment.

Perhaps sometimes it is abandonment by human beings. People have limits. Communities fail. Friends grow silent. Spiritual fathers cannot accompany us everywhere. There are chambers of the heart into which no other human being can enter.

But their silence does not tell us what God is doing.

Do not interpret the silence too quickly.

Especially when you are wounded.

Especially when you are tired.

Especially when you desperately want someone to tell you that everything will be all right.

The Fathers would not give you that assurance.

They would give you something better.

Remain.

Do not make a theology out of your loneliness.

Do not build a future out of your fear.

Do not make irreversible judgments because no one answered today.

Remain.

Wash the dishes.

Prepare the medicine.

Answer the cry from the other room.

Open the Psalter.

Stand before the icon.

Say the Name.

Sleep when you can.

Rise.

Begin again.

Perhaps someday you will understand what this season meant.

Perhaps you never will.

Understanding was never the promise.

Christ was.

And when every other voice has fallen silent, when every road has disappeared into darkness, when even prayer seems to return unanswered from heaven, there remains the terrible, beautiful freedom of Arsenius:

O God, do not abandon me.

And then, without waiting to feel the answer:

Let me make a beginning.

That is enough.

It has always been enough.