Silence and stars

Envy me all you want, but this hot Buenos Aires weather has been roasting me at night. And so I (and others) escape to the terraza, my favorite part of the seminary, most evenings for a moment or two where a light breeze makes the air not quite so stagnant and a little more bueno. The slumbering city seems a bit farther away, and the water tank above gurgles placidly. 

Some nights, I can even see the stars. 

"Starry Night" Vincent Van Gogh

It's the stars that caught our attention last night as we drank terere (cold mate with juice- hits the spot in the summer) and talked about life and ministry and these past nine months and home and God and future plans and past stories and present food; really, what more is there to talk about? Terere finished, we once again looked up. 

"The stars are so distant," reflected Camilo1, and paused. "Like God." He lowered his gaze from the nightly heavens and reassured: "I know God is, and that He is here, but He is silent right now, and the silence is disconcerting."

Silence and especially the silence of God is a serious problem for Pentecostals, who believe in a very verbal expression of the Holy Spirit. It's equally as significant of a problem for any believer- we want God to speak to us, to guide us, to approve of us, to respond to us in some way or another. The silence of the stars makes us very uneasy, and our hearts grow heavy and anxious. What we heard last week or last year is too easily forgotten or discarded as "general"; we must hear today and preferably something that responds to our queries and our will. 

How silently, how silently...2

I think of the times of silence in my own life, the times when I begged for wisdom, exact directions in my plans, GPS-precise confirmation...I got none. Instead, I heard the silence of heaven, and occasionally, when I least expected it, something unrelated or vague; the three times I presumed to hear God's voice with the most clarity in the past year seemed unhelpful at the time and followed depressingly long bouts of nothingness. 

What shows up in Google for "Abraham and stars"-cool!

I stare again at the stars and think of Abraham, the father of the faith and a fellow stargazer. For someone who heard God with impressive precision, doing the math on an extended lifespan and the quantity of theophanies3 therein, there had to have been some pretty lonely times of silence. I can imagine Abraham staring at the heavens and remembering God's promise to bless him and make his people greater than the constellations and wondering once again as Sarah's cradle rocks emptily or as Ismael's small hand grasps Abraham's gnarled finger. 

God's will in those moments must have felt like an awfully big stab in the dark, even by the light of the stars. 

How does one live in that silence? How do you go about every night when the stars are stubborn and have nothing to say? 

I've become convinced that my truest character and convictions come out in moments of silence, because they require me to wait. I am not naturally a patient person, in personality or culture, and disagreeably, patience is acquired through experience. In silence I learn to wait quietly. Waiting quietly doesn't mean that I cloister myself off or postpone all decision making. It simply means that I allow God to speak when and how He chooses (not a tame lion, after all4). It means that the times God does speak after a silence, I am ready to listen. 

It means I can sit under the silence of the stars and still know that He is God. 

Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer

Every night I lift my voice...

Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel

Our ancestors trusted in you and you rescued them...

They trusted in you and were never disgraced5

Camilo

1 Camilo González Amézquita from Colombia is finishing up his seminary experience here while working on the annoying Gen-Ed entry requirement for the University of Buenos Aires (philosophy major). All this to say that yes, he really did use the word 'disconcerting' in a normal conversation (in Spanish) and that at the moment, or any time, he would really really appreciate some french fries.

2 Yep, I'm breaking the Christmas carols out already- the line is from "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem"
How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven...

3 Theophany- fancy Greek word meaning "God shows up"

4 C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

5 Psalm 22:2-5, New Living Translation (one of my new favorite translation finds, especially in Spanish as la Nueva Traducción Viviente)