Mother Theresa

Last night I followed our dogs into a moonlit backyard, feeling like Mother Theresa.

Not the mother saint. God no. Not that side of her.

I mean Mother Theresa, saint of doubt, who for fifty years stepped out under her own Calcutta moon, strained her old eyes to see God in its light, but found the light too thin. Found only rock. Craters.

"If there be God," she prayed in those times, "please forgive me."

This morning Ms. V, my thin, frail, elderly friend, and the closest person to Saint Mother Theresa I have ever known, lies unconscious in the city ICU. Yesterday, a mentally-ill homeless woman -- one of ten thousand she has helped in her life -- tried to kill her. Left her unconscious, shattered bones in her face, bleeding in her brain.

We're not sure why. We're not sure what will come of this.

"If there be God," Theresa prayed from her Dark Night, "please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul" (Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light, 2007).

I am no Mother Theresa -- not even in my doubt. God, seeing my weakness, spoon feeds me the smallest rare doses of Mystery.

Not so for Theresa. For fifty years she felt no divine presence in her life: not in her work; not at the Table. That's quite an exile for one of God's most faithful. Even wayward Israel was only in the desert for forty.

"How painful is this unknown pain," she continued, "I have no faith."

Yes you do, Mother. Otherwise, it wouldn't hurt.

Meeting Moses

In college I experimented with fasting. Once or twice a month, that is, I would forgo all apple juice and Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, all beer and marijuana, and even the cafeteria's chicken-fried steak. Next steps: fill up a big jug of water, unplug the phone, and pull up a chair at the dorm room window. And then there I'd sit for two or three days, waiting for winged proverbs to smack against the glass.

Junior year was the big one -- the Seven Day fast. I guess over time I had just become inured with the two- or three-day stints: the first day's food withdrawals, the second day's occasional, and always fleeting, awakenings. I thought for sure that something more drastic - to the tune of a week - would put me clean out into the Desert. I liked the thought of that.

The fast began and ended with a touch of religiosity -- respectively, a last meal at the China Buffet, and the slow, ceremonious eating of a fatted Golden Delicious, on which I'd written a long and since-forgotten poem. But between these vaguely religious bookends, there was only a faint smear of spirituality about the whole thing. At my least gracious, I think back on myself then as a dime-a-dozen consumer of epiphany. The Seven Days could just as easily have been a stack of DVDs.

***

To make my entertainment edgier, I meditated on the Desert. But first, to get there, I had to wander, backwards as it were, across long stretches of Promised Land. On day five, I finally made it back to the Jordan. I imagined myself the anti-Moses.

As I neared the river, I gradually made out the silhouette of a man on the other side. Then, at once, everything within me sank: my stomach, my irreverence, my 20-year-old suburban hubris.

It was Moses, still barred from crossing my way. I slowly edged up on the Promised-side of the muddy banks. I could see him well now.

"It's beautiful," said Moses, staring out over the expanse of oak groves and honeycomb behind me.


"It's okay," I conceded. "But honestly, it's rockier than it looks. And then there are the Amonites and Canaanites. Not to mention the strip malls."

"The who?" asked Moses.

"Nothing," I replied. I immediately regretted having brought it up.

I looked across the Jordan myself, and suddenly felt invigorated and emotional, like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration.

"It is good for us to be here... Do you think He'd mind if I swam out your way?"

Visibly annoyed now, Moses turned and stared across the plains of Moab.

"The desert's not for tourists," he said at last.

At that, I was instantly back in my apartment, eyeing the refrigerator door. I was dreaming of gorging on milk and honey with the other Jebusites.

Mk. 9:24

I won't say I'm experiencing a "dark night of the soul." I haven't by any means earned that right.

"Dark nights" I'll leave to those who can face them: folks like Mother Theresa or Saint John of the Cross, who continually prayed to and yearned for God. They did so even when -- for decades, in Mother Theresa's case -- they felt no closeness to God in their prayers, and continually ached for God in his absence.

What I'm going through now is something less: an overnight flight delay of the soul.

In an airport lit up like it's noon, my own midnight is spent trying to sleep in a chair that's cleverly designed to prevent it.

Occasionally I get up and pace the terminals; I lug around my tambourine and giant golden harp. Logistically, I know they won't fit in the overhead compartment. What the hell was I thinking? I quietly put the thought out of my mind.

The thought comes back. I rest my hope on the First Class closet, where a few times they've let me stow my guitar.

At 4 a.m. I am downright pissed to find the five foolish bridesmaids, huddled together and dozing off (par for the course) on a bench by the women's bathroom. I see that every one of them has her oil lamp lingering somewhere nearby. This frustrates me: they've got lamps for God's sake -- IEDs if I ever saw them -- while I can't even get through with a six-ounce tube of Colgate.

I suppose I should just let these little injustices slide, and be thankful the six of us got tickets at all.


It's funny: in ways I am a firmer believer now than I've ever been. I unswervingly believe .... something, even something substantial, about God's promise to humanity made through Christ. I believe in God's fervent preference for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and in the responsibility that entails for a privileged kid like me.

I believe that God loves us. It's the one truth I really left seminary with. And that's almost always enough.

But sometimes I'm not sure "doubt" is even the word for what I feel. I find myself somewhere out past Thomas, if as yet shy of Judas.

I hide this from many -- though not all -- of my co-workers and clients. They are steeped in another language, a different language, which they share with me at least a little bit each day. "Holy Spirit-filled." "Just keep praising." "God will work a miracle." "Bathe it in prayer." They worry for the salvation of souls.

Their language feels like a litmus test, which, at least secretly, I continue to fail.

I've learned not to use those terms myself. I say "the Lord" and "Holy Spirit" with the sincerity of a flight attendant, welcoming another hundred people on the plane.

Sometimes, though rarely, the attendant even means "hello." He believes "hello."

Lord, help him with his unbelief.