October 30, 2024

Internet service came on briefly yesterday, during which time, to save them effort and money, I cancelled my repair appointment, for today. Then, after I’d left rehearsal early to luxuriate in an evening of TV, service was off again. No vehemence on the phone could bring them earlier than November 2. For perhaps the first time in my life I demanded to speak to a supervisor. He was more politic than the agent, but supplied no different answer. The first night this happened my fury was untameable, and turned onto very dark paths not really associated with cable at all. You have done these awful things to me, Lord. Maybe I could at least check email. You have negated me; perhaps I could have Internet. You have stolen my life, Lord; maybe you could let me sit in front of the TV with a vodka in my hand. 

Last night was different, at first merely duller, dull and edgeless. I could not have survived a night like the one before. I couldn’t sit home, so I took a longish walk through the neighborhood in the dark. As I walked, I heard my voice saying to the Night, “You think my suffering is funny.” 

The next words were “I acknowledge that it is.” 

That broke a barrier. Returned, sat on the porch, and my mind wandered, but this time not to anger and despair, but to a probing acceptance I don’t remember feeling before. I said to the Covering Night, All right. You have my attention. What do you want? The Pure Spirit stood in the garden, and I opened my heart to it. I wanted it to speak to me, and after a while I suppose it did, but in a way not easy to discern, in a way that explained why one misses or mishears its voice from day to day. It shifts the heart without addressing it. It changes venue without a path or a door. It does not speak, but its answer is received. Pure Spirit. I catch myself writing “it,” by which I mean to express that the Pure Spirit was not a personality as I recognize it, not a person congruent with my experience. It was Presence. It made my accusations of malevolence and indifference absurd without exactly addressing them. It was Wholly Other, there in the darkness shivering with random lights from the street, utterly beautiful. I asked it why I was born and what was I supposed to do and have I done it at all. I didn’t expect an answer, as I’ve never received one as often as I’ve asked. 

Some time later the words formed in my heart. It is sufficient. 

I determined to sit in the darkness until some rare thing happened–besides meeting the Lord of the Universe under my redbud trees. A bear wandered out of the back garden, crossed the drive into the neighbors’ yard. That was it. The great black Bear of Revelation, appearing for a moment, mostly dark itself, disappearing. 

Of course when I woke an hour ago the first thing I tthought of was the Internet. My suffering is funny.