When the Scaffolding Is Removed

A Dialogue with St. Arsenius on Loss of Form and the Absence of Peace

“Do not seek a place free from struggle;

seek the place where God has placed you.”

— attributed to the Desert Fathers

Disciple:

Father, I feel as though the ground beneath me has given way. What once held my life together has loosened. I have not lost faith, but I have lost form. Even prayer feels exposed, unguarded. There is little peace, only consent and endurance. This troubles those who love me. It troubles me as well.

Arsenius:

Tell me, child, when the scaffolding is removed from a house, is the house destroyed?

Disciple:

No, Father. But it looks unfinished. Vulnerable.

Arsenius:

And yet the scaffolding was never the dwelling. It was only there to assist the work. Many confuse the supports with the structure, and the structure with the life within it.

Disciple:

They ask me why there is no peace. They pray that peace might return, even if clarity does not. I do not refuse peace, Father. But it does not come.

Arsenius:

Peace is not always given as a feeling. Sometimes it is given as the strength not to flee. There is a peace that consoles, and a peace that crucifies the false self quietly, without sweetness. Both come from the same Lord.

Disciple:

Then the lack of peace is not necessarily a failure?

Arsenius:

If lack of peace were a failure, the Garden would have been empty. The Lord Himself did not say, “My soul is at rest.” He said, “My soul is sorrowful unto death.” Was He therefore disobedient?

Disciple:

No, Father.

Arsenius:

Then do not judge your fidelity by the presence or absence of ease. Judge it by whether you remain turned toward God when nothing supports you but naked trust.

Disciple:

I fear that what others hear in my words is sadness, even fading. They wish to clothe what I am living too quickly with meaning or beauty. I fear romanticizing what should remain poor.

Arsenius:

You are right to fear that. Poverty loses its truth when it is adorned. God does not hurry to interpret our desolation. He inhabits it. Meaning comes later, if it comes at all. For now, the task is simpler and harder: to remain.

Disciple:

Remain where, Father?

Arsenius:

In the place where you no longer know who you are apart from God. In the cellar where titles, roles, and recognitions cannot follow you. That place feels like fading only because the false light has been extinguished.

Disciple:

And the fruit? Others tell me there is fruit, even if I cannot see it.

Arsenius:

Fruit is borne in darkness. If you could see it clearly, you would be tempted to claim it. God often hides the fruit from the one who labors so that the laborer may remain poor.

Disciple:

So I need not defend the absence of peace?

Arsenius:

No. Only guard your heart from bitterness and from haste. Let those who love you pray for peace. Receive their prayer. But do not fabricate peace to relieve their sorrow. Truthful suffering is already an offering.

Disciple:

Father, will peace return?

Arsenius:

Perhaps. Or perhaps you will pass beyond the need to ask. There is a peace that arrives when the soul stops demanding signs of God’s nearness and rests in His hidden fidelity.

Disciple:

What should I do now?

Arsenius:

Stay where you are. Pray simply. Love those placed before you. Do not seek a new form to replace the old. Let God decide whether He will give you one or whether He Himself will be enough.

Disciple:

Pray for me, Father.

Arsenius:

I pray that you will not be spared the truth, and that you will not be abandoned in it. Go now. Keep silence. God is nearer than your fear suggests.