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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nSo I did some things that Future Me would appreciate. I wrote down contact numbers and an outline of directions if I should be taken suddenly ill — “I, being of as sound mind and body as can reasonably be expected…” I bought a new saut\u00e9 pan with a glass lid and used it to make Indian butter chickpeas; the kind of gift that keeps giving. Washed some dishes. Shredded some junk mail. Accepted the offer of local publication for a story. Sat on the front lawn of my building with a friend (she, socially distanced in a lawn chair) with a glass of ros\u00e9, watching the dusk fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spiritual director I once had used to talk about “practicing the absence” as a photo negative to Brother Lawrence’s “practicing the presence”: strangely, it involves doing many of the same things. It was not a spirituality, nor a practice, that attracted me much. I did not have to practice a presence that was with me whether I wanted it or not, and doing tasks mindfully seemed to me to be extra makework for the ADHD brain. I preferred the kataphatic movement — the affirmation of images, the celebration of festal pleasures, the shame-less pursuit of fruition — to the apophatic. This also is Thou<\/em>. My soul was not built to have lovers, and John of the Cross’s metaphor of going to one’s lover in the dark of loss was doubly alien to my sensibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think I’m in a place where I need an apophatic orientation. Neither is this Thou<\/em>. Let the images crack apart like dropped tiles; let my need to care burn its last slip on a makeshift wilderness altar; let the treadle of sacred time turn on joys I don’t feel as I give it its minimal push; let it go, let it all go, fashion myself no facile hopes and cling to no impoverished pictures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I once thought this kind of thing was as self-indulgent and over-dramatic as the lovers of the Affirmative Way were accused of being; but it is not. It’s just the offering that presents itself to be made. Best to do it by choice. Ma foi est mort; vive ma foi<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m sure there are some fellow pilgrims on the Via Negativa just now. I’m sure I’ll probably find them. That’s usually how these things work. Bless you, and let’s walk on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been one of those “she has a three” weeks, to be honest. 2020 in general and the pandemic in particular has tied together all the salley ropes of my alarm bells, so if you ring one, you ring them all. A church friend died suddenly; another friend has been in hospital; people I know<\/p>\n