This is in response to Rose Marie Berger's Article in the most recent Sojourners issue. I would invite everyone to read it. The article is about the bewilderment that we so often associate with a negative state of displacement. However her contention is that this state of displacement "is not momentary confusion or uncertainty. It is to become fundamentally displaced. Trauma may bring it on—illness or the death of a parent, companion, or child. Prolonged spiritual practice may bring it on. Accumulated, unattended sorrow may bring it on."
Reading her entire article, which I linked at right, continues on to reflect on how various spiritual teachers have meditated on bewilderment as a moment when all of your possibilities are revealed to you and while it can be terrifying it is one step closer to being completely at ease with the will of God.
Rose Marie Berger explained the sensation like this, "Every once in a while, one becomes profoundly and spiritually bewildered. In the midst of shaping the sandcastle of your life—adding little rooms and windows with a variety of views—you suddenly scoop a little too deep, and brittle-cold sea water rushes in. It covers everything. It dulls all of your neat shovel-cut edges. Glancing up from the quotidian architecture of your life, you confront the awful expanse of the sea: its green water, its endless horizon."
She goes on to quote writers from Merton to Rumi in all their explanations of the unexplainable. Azima Melina Kolin responded to the question of what bewilderment is with this, "In my experience, it is a state I have glimpsed in retreats when the senses are shut (if you are lucky to succeed in doing so) and the mind is redundant, lost."
With Kolin's response I was reminded of several moments but one moment in particular occurred one evening on a mountain top during my employment with Sierra Service Project. We had been going to this same spot every Thursday for the each weeks spiritual meditation moment with the week's set of teenagers. I had of course participated each week and taken the moment to take in the view of the valley below as well as to savor the moments of quiet alone. It was probably the fifth week when suddenly, almost as suddenly as the sea water invades sand castles, I found my mind empty of everything. Not a single voice was present in my mind. In fact it was, well the best way to describe it is with bewilderment. I remember being astonished that their were no voices at all. None that I could even conjour. In that moment I couldn't even remember what they sounded like.
I thought perhaps it was a God moment, but I also contemplated that perhaps I had not had enough sleep all summer and the weeks were almost past. I thought Of Teresa of Avila who would say to her students when they would come to her with a revelation, or God moment, that they should go eat and sleep and see if the moment was still present before making any claims.
This moment on the mountain was gone just as quickly as it arrived. But it was a profound moment which I long to return to. I know now from meditating on similar moments that they are not sustainable. In Berger's article she quotes Azima,"'"It is very difficult for us to experience such bewilderment in our normal consciousness, but the experience is of wonder and immense joy, freedom from self. It is wonderful, and not sustainable. It is a state of grace that I suppose anyone can taste at any time if ... graced."
Have you ever experienced a moment where everything is possible and nothing is possible, where you are so completely blank that everything paints you? I think that when you are in this state of bewilderment you are so completely a part of God and since God is everything at once and nothing at the same once, you are able to be completely at ease with the bewilderment. However, I think that since I didn't have the knowledge of these moments that I let them pass without truly knowing their power to change my life towards God.
Please share your moments of bewilderment. I would love to read and hear about them, then perhaps when we all experience them in the brief moments perhaps we can be better prepared to step into the nothingness of God's presence.
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7 comments:
this is lovely; i too have had similar brief moments where the wind rustles my costume and my physical boundaries are unclear. and then, of course, back to life's tasks. before i was enlightened i chopped wood and carried water. after i was enlightened i chopped wood and carried water. love you!! vickie
What a great topic.
"Have you ever experienced a moment where everything is possible and nothing is possible, where you are so completely blank that everything paints you? I think that when you are in this state of bewilderment you are so completely a part of God and since God is everything at once and nothing at the same once, you are able to be completely at ease with the bewilderment."
Well.. I have moments of everyday complete blankness due to Pooh-brain syndrome fairly regularly. Spiritual blankness has been more rare.
The earliest I can remember I was in my teens. It was a bad time (long story) and I was in bed awake in the early hours of the morning worrying, crying and feeling miserable. I felt utterfly alone and then..
...
there I was lying in the palm of a huge hand. Complete silence.
Complete peace.
Complete sense of being safe and loved.
A perfect moment. :)
I have had moments like that as well – often they were extremely brief – sometimes they lasted longer – in those cases I was usually alone in nature on a hike or walk, and the moment left me as soon as I returned to the hustle and bustle of modern life. Some of my moments took different forms and happened under extreme circumstances – often when I was physically and psychologically either totally exhausted or close to break down, because I pushed myself too hard or due to “not ideal” circumstances. Many of these moments happened when I traveled. I’ve had my share of challenging times in life and I used to experience some of these moments, when situations were not at their best – when I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, or when I had consistent highly challenging difficulties, lasting long periods. I can only (try to) describe these alternative moments as very intense, high level sensations of positive emotional euphoria... In those cases I did not have to be in a quiet place – they happened in “the middle of it all”, (usually triggered by a special event) - and the sensations were so strong that it blanked everything else out. A strong rushing sense of invincibility and vulnerability (at the same time) in the face of personal abject adversity. What I was left with on these occasions, was always a sense of HOPE. Has it not been said that HOPE will conquer all?
Those events/moments gave me the energy, power, vision, understanding and endurance to keep on going.
Jacques
I imagine that I would find living in a state of "bewilderment" unsettling and unsatisfying. The world is already made up of things you cannot affect and things you can, limiting the possibilities for "doing" in any situation. Letting these things overwhelm you to the point of becoming a spiritual experience seems antithetical to a real search for answers. Grace, for me, is finding peace with who I am and what I have done, not so much with opening myself up to the infinite possibilities of any moment.
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