That was the phrase that I took away from a friend in Mesa weeks ago.
The mystery of faith.
He uttered the words in but a moment of silence.
I don't remember what was said before and I'm not too terribly sure what followed. It was almost an afterthought. Four small words he said for himself. A little pause before he reached across the table for his Book of Mormon. And yet, while their utterance was a soft and quiet event, the whole of my body heard them.
The mystery of faith.
Faith is murky territory. Covered and difficult and absolutely revelatory. Faith being a thing that is not absolute. That cannot be divided into halves or even eighths. That cannot be traced linearly or made sense of logically. That is to have a perfect hope in the unseen and intangible and unknown. But faith being the thing that leads to the light.
The mystery of faith. a leap. and another. and more after.
Perfect in its absolute imperfection.
There was something else there too. A second phrase hidden in a popular song--another phrase that I have sung countless times before that day in church choirs and around the piano at my grandpas house. But that day I sung the lyrics in my head to help compensate for the heat of the Arizona day. How silently, how silently the wondrous Gift is giv'n. Perfect words sandwiched in the popular tune of little town of Bethlehem.
How silently, how silently.
The wondrous Gift is giv'n.
How Jesus entered the world, how God sent His only son, how the very thing that split time in two--into a distinct before and after--how silently and absolutely, unequivocally important it was that He needed not to enter with a bang and flash, but with the small cry of a child, born to a mother and father, in a manger outside of an inn that was just too full.
How silently the Gift was giv'n.
The mystery of faith.
I often sit down and write when I'm lonely--because loneliness is, as it turns out, a thing--and what is reflected in my words is that I'm sad. Not lonely, but sad. And the people I share my words with hear that I'm sad. And I can understand that. I understand the confusion of the two things and then their inevitable worry. I know that because they are the ones who watched helplessly, outside my barbed walls, as I lived through it all. Alone. And I imagine, with relative certainty, that it was sometimes far worse for them than for me. Because I let them watch.
My sister is my go to girl. She complains that I'm always complaining. She's right. Often, I am. She worries that I'm sad. Mainly because she knows and can see through the walls. I try to explain to her that I haven't found anyone to share the part of my life inside the walls. Not a romantic relationship, but just a healthy one. So she's my go to girl. I don't yet have someone to tell all these things to, so she's it. And I abhor that she has to listen. So I'll write when she doesn't want to hear it.
The mystery of faith. And a leap after that.
Two years ago, I sat on the stairs of 27 Palace Court London. It was a townhouse one block west of Hyde Park and for months I called it my home. Because that's what it was. The day was particularly dreary when my good girlfriend Dem sat down beside me on the damp stairs plastered in leaves and cigarette butts. She cocked her head, placed her arm around me and asked what was the matter. . .
It was a sad event. Because I deflected. And lent only evasive responses. And then watched as the barbs cut her hands as she searched to find a way through. The two of us meeting on the stairs became the chat of strangers more than anything else. Because a good friend can become a stranger when imaginary barricades are involved. The broken and fractured conversation. The two minutes of which I can say nothing other than a sort of panic took hold and I wasn't terribly kind.
You know, Per, it is really hard to be your friend sometimes.
I--I just.....
I tried to formulate some sort of explanation for the deafening silence between us and my dropped jaw. I had nothing. She placed her hand on my hand and looked deep into my eyes for a few long seconds. And then I watched her Hunter galoshes slop in the rain as she carefully walked away.
There was no explanation. Or even an excuse. Because it is generally acknowledged that people are sometimes hard to love. Even me. And she was right.
How silently the wondrous gift is giv'n.
Perfect in its absolute imperfection.
Later, trying to explain the immediacy of the sadness of that event, I wrote in my journal, well, the thing is, that once upon a time, at the end of the day I gave up on faith, and I need it to live happily ever after, after the manner of happiness. So where do I even begin?
The mystery of faith.
The people who live through these things with me always worry that a little blue, a little low, a little lonely, is the commencement of a very long and slippery slope. And I understand the fear because it's a lot like drowning. It's a constant and persistent and impossible filling of the lungs with heavy water. It's dark and difficult and murky. But you know how I got over it? I learned to swim. To press my legs hard and long toward the light. And once you learn how to swim, you always know how to swim--and so that particular dark body of water holds minimal fear.
Depression does not scare me. It comes and goes. And the loneliness and the anxiety are not who I am. I have a beautiful, burning life with a few drowning moments. But don't we all?
I just think that it'd be nice if the person who lands on the other side of the wall doesn't worry about it in the same way others have. Because I'll swim out of it. And I do love that the person is there. Because it takes away the loneliness.
All the smiles from the lighted shores, tell me to take counsel with myself. To which I want to say that the counsel cannot help me deconstruct these mended walls. Because it was that same counsel that built them. That counsel will not share in the belly-ache laughter. And it won't help me calm myself when I'm instantly anxious and can't catch my breathe. It won't go on spontaneous adventures. It will not tell me that I'm reacting completely appropriately. It will not hug me. It will not wipe away the tears that rest on the curve of my cheeks.
Loneliness is murky territory.
The mystery of faith.
I want the silent-kind-of-love. Love that is absolutely and unequivocally important that it does not enter with a bang or flash, but by slipping into the cracks of an everyday life. The bond of being needed and loved. Like a mother and her daughter. The trust. Faith is what gets us to love. That revelation--that absolute pure light at the end of all the murk--that is love.
And so faith is the journey. It is the life. It is the day after day. The trust. And it can be a tremendously lonely thing. Because it is sometimes unclear and sometimes unfair and footing is often lost.
And so the mystery of faith is a road that is traveled alone.
But when the dark gives way to the light, well...
how silently the wondrous gift is giv'n.
xo.pa
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