Last week I spent 3 days on a silent retreat with a group of local clergy. This is an annual event; it's been a January tradition to bundle up, head out to the Star of the North Retreat Center, and spend a few days in prayer, reading, listening, and fellowship.
As it was a silent retreat, I thought it only fitting to take along Pete Greig's "God on Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer". I started the book a few days prior to the retreat, and thought it would be a good book to read at that particular place, at that particular time.
It was seven years ago, during the annual silent retreat, that I received a message to call home. We were expecting our second child. AK had gone to the clinic for a routine ultrasound (as if seeing into the womb can possibly be routine!). Sarah Joy was suffering from congestive heart failure in utero. There could be any number of causes. We'd like to do more tests. Would you like to schedule a termination of the pregnancy? We'd like you to speak with the geneticist. Pete Grieg's book tries to give people a way forward when God is silent. Not when God says "no" to our prayers, but when God decides to take his time in giving us the answer, when he is silent for a moment.
The overall pattern of the book is a journey through the last days of Jesus' earthly life. We walk with Jesus on Maundy Thursday. If there was ever an "unanswered" prayer, it is surely Jesus' prayer that we might be one. Jesus' prayer in the garden is often a model for our own. We pray with Jesus that cups might be taken away from us, and yet so often it seems that is the only draught God offers. Not my will, but yours.
On Good Friday we are God-forsaken. Jesus' cry of abandonment from the Cross becomes our own - why, why, why, have you forsaken me. In this section Greig tries to work through some of the "why" questions. Why does the world seem to work the way it does? Why is my prayer not being answered? What are the ways in which these questions have been answered by Christians, and how can a deeper understanding of God's will, God's world and God's work help us through our personal "Good Friday" prayers. In this section he takes us through the series of simpler answers which we might be accustomed to. I have heard many of those same answers from well meaning friends and strangers. I think my favorite was the plea to "Just pray Jabez" and SJ would be healed. But while those answers which Greig enumerates can and do have their place, I am glad that he takes us to Holy Saturday.
In our fear of unknowing, we leapfrog Holy Saturday and rush the resurrection. We race disconcerted to make meaning and find beauty where there simply is none. Yet.
This is the real place of struggle for unanswered prayers. The time when God truly is silent. Greig's observation is true - we want to hurry through Holy Saturday to Easter. It is a day of silence. Yet, we are reminded: though God is silent, He is not absent. This is the deeper place of Christian trust, when we have to say "into your hands I commend my spirit". It is the place of trusting in God's presence with us when all signs of his presence have vanished. Too often we try to rush others through this day as well. Or we try to fill the void with something of our own creation. I think of how we like to fill hospital rooms with chatter and stuff, when sometimes our mere presence is what is needed. Not our voice.
Then Greig points us to the Resurrection - the place where all prayer is answered. The book is seasoned with his own experiences of struggling with "unanswered prayer". And at the end he gives a bit of a guided resource for reflection which can be used alone or in groups. The book is a good antidote to overly triumphalist Christianity, and it addresses a concern that many Christians have, but which often (I have found) they are not very willing to admit. After all, what kind of Christian is ignored by God? This book is food for thought and prayer for all of us who have wondered why God doesn't answer... I'd give it 8 out of 10.
related post: God on Mute
Comments