I’m not sure how to describe the feeling I have as I write this column. The feeling of wanting, needing to write, but believing I have nothing worthwhile to say. I have spent the last several months being uninspired. Maybe I feel everything that needs to be said is already being said. Maybe the sheer number of things that need to be said has finally overwhelmed me. Either way, my journals have sat unopened, my pens laid down, unmoving, and I’ve marched on, not writing, when writing is so much part of who I am.
One thing I know has contributed to this hiatus of sorts is I’ve let go of the habit. I used to write something—anything—every day. I stopped doing that almost a year ago now: a mistake, for sure. But I’ve had no reason to pick it back up. And I’ve been finding it increasingly distressing. Writing isn’t just an exercise for me, it is part of my spiritual practice. It is part of who, as I understand it, God made me to be. To not write feels like a betrayal of my soul.
So why can’t I just do it? Why am I not drawn to my pen and paper the way others are drawn to their pianos or prayer books? I am left to conclude, though not necessarily accept, that this season must mean something important for me in my relationship with God. I must be meant to learn something from these feelings of untetheredness, adriftness, of absence. I must be meant to do some sort of reflection on the integrity of my spiritual life and how, when I don’t feel connected to God, God is still connected to me. I am sure I am meant to cling to God ever more closely in my own time of spiritual lack. I am confident in all those things. I am confident that in hindsight there will be a lesson in this sunset of the soul, but I’ve never had perfect vision in the moment.
So right now, all that reflection and clinging and trust will have to wait. Right now I am still sitting in the discontent and the lament. God will need to feel far away for a little while longer, while I work up the courage to say I’ve had enough and it’s time for God to come back. Until then, I suppose I will pray in the way we all know how, on my knees at the side of my bed, asking God to remember me, remember us all, when we come into God’s Kingdom.
