Written by Jonathan Friesen, M.A.
Photo by Joe Pohle
I woke at exactly 4:06 am. I knew this as I snuck a peek at my cell phone. Mobile devices were not allowed on my silent retreat, but the glance felt like what a priest had earlier identified as a “venial” or lesser sin. Fully awake, I opted for an early morning walk along the darkness of Lake DeMontreville, where the Jesuit retreat house is located.
Now, I’d been wordless for two days, heading into a third with some distance to go. Empty verbal space quickens a man’s thoughts, and I tell you that though decaffeinated, I felt alert, almost hyper-aware. I pushed out of my residence and into morning. Were not those crickets especially loud? Something about extended silence and solitude heightens the senses.
The water gentled against shore … beautiful. But those fool crickets unnerved me, millions of fingernails on old chalkboards. I suddenly felt like escaping, a FOMO, late-for-a-meeting, need-to-be-somewhere-else type of feeling, and I hurried past the still-sleeping yard lights spread across the hundred-acre property.
Quickening feet double-timed past the chapel, the four sleeping quarters; they took a sharp right by marble Mary, and walked to the retreat’s entrance gate, locked of course.
Which is where I committed my second venial of the morning by climbing over the fence. There I exhaled deeply. It was no louder there, but at least I was free of “A Quiet Place.” I walked along a bend of DeMontreville Trail and squeezed through a second locked gate and onto a paved road that led up to the nearby Carmelite Monastery (A Quiet Place, part 2 … I wasn’t thinking.) It’s still early, I reckoned; should have this road to myself. Other than eleven deer and three wild turkeys, I did. I reached the high pasture and started a slow stroll through wet grass toward a break in the surrounding tree line to watch the sunrise.
I go to these retreats yearly, and usually, I have serious business to do with God. My family is falling apart, I’m falling apart, you know, juicy stuff. I always enter the “big hush” thinking, “God, we gotta talk, you and me.”
But not this year. This year held no emergencies. On day 1, I arrived solid—bored and feeling empty—but solid. Honestly, if I’d have headed home with a little clarity on the book I’m writing, maybe a few nice Christian-like insights, I would’ve called my retreat a success. Face it, I was just … there.
You’ve felt that too. You’ve been “just there” with God, I bet. Oh, you might’ve been doing some “God” thing like reading your Bible or singing a song—maybe sitting in chapel or in God and the Gospel—whatever. But you were just … there. As a triage nurse might say, “Alert and oriented” times 1, when you know who you are but not much else. Shoot, you might not even know that. And your heart sure doesn’t feel very alive.
But after a few “just there” days, as I said, this morning I was activated … “in the room,” as they say. I knew the who, the where, and the when: Alert and oriented times 3. I just didn’t know the reason, the purpose for any of it. Sometimes, we need to wait for that.
I did know sunrise was coming. I couldn’t see it yet. It wasn’t so much “light,” as it was “less dark.” You know that time? The weather was like the lake … beautiful. The cool breeze, peaceful. But not me. I was agitated, and here there were no crickets to blame. I started pacing. And speaking during a silent retreat … Venial sin #3, committed within twenty minutes.
“God, where have you been? I haven’t said a word for going on three days, but neither have you. Where were you?” I kept whispering that last question, a man stuck on repeat. “Where were you?” Each time, it gained momentum, hurt a little more, and I had no idea why. I only knew that the silence of God suddenly felt less acceptable and more like betrayal. Like abandonment. “Where were you?” I was crying now. Crying and yelling my question and remembering a conversation…
Did I mention that day before, I had gone to a priest for a little spiritual direction? I had. During our meeting, he told me a true story. It was the only thing I took away from the time, and it went like this:
I was ministering the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) and this girl, maybe 13 years old, stopped by. Was she alone? I didn’t know. I didn’t see anyone with her. She stood outside the confessional, hesitant, angry even. So, I opened with an easy one.
“How are you doing?”
Nothing.
“How’s your family?”
Nothing.
She just stood outside that door, face fixed, staring at the empty chair. I was thinking, geez, I thought I was good at this.
Then she said it.
“My dad died six weeks ago.”
What do you say to that?
And she cried, and I cried, and I guess every so often the Spirit gives a man words.
“Are you ready to forgive God for not stepping in?”
Slowly, very slowly, she nodded, whispered, “Yes.” Then she stepped in, and we cried some more.
I didn’t recall the rest, but right then, in the pasture, I thought on his story and our question, both the girl’s and mine: “Where were you?”
My dad did not die when I was 13; I did. Hope did. My heart did. Tourette Syndrome overwhelmed my mind and held captive my body; seizures stole clear thought, threw me unconscious on the ground. Panic attacks sent me running from school. Chronic pneumonia robbed me of breath. At some point, I looked at whatever I had become and said, “I am one pathetic, sickly kid.” Right there, my despairing heart agreed and broke, and a tiny heart-fragment locked itself up, young and alone. God-betrayed, God-abandoned.
Agreements are powerful things. Make them with the truth, you have a chance at becoming fully alive. Alert and oriented times 4, knowing your identity, location, your unique place in the Story, and your purpose. Ah, but make agreements with a lie, and your heart shatters, I shattered. A fifty-five-year-old man stumbling forward with a splintered heart, many parts mature, but guarding a tiny shard in the middle: the young, betrayed, and abandoned part, stuck at 13.
My folks named me Jonathan. I named that broken part: Pathetic and Sickly, though we’d not been introduced before. That morning, Pathetic and Sickly was hesitant, angry even (You know how 13-year-olds act when woken up.) Angry at God. “Where were you?” This part of me did not seem to care about keeping silence. “I mean whatever, you didn’t heal me, but where were you? Why did you abandon me?”
Was I ranting in that pasture for an hour? I don’t know. The sun came up. I think it was pretty. Didn’t really notice; I wasn’t myself. Or maybe I finally was.
Then I said it.
“My heart died 42 years ago.”
What do you say after that?
And I cried, and He cried, and I guess every so often the Spirit gives a man words.
“Are you ready to forgive God for not stepping in?”
Slowly, very slowly, I nodded, whispered, “Yes.”
And a thirteen-year-old girl leapt from the story of a nameless priest, took the hand of a thirteen-year-old boy, and led him towards Home.
