"Be Still, and Know that I Am God"
Whenever I stand before Carl Heinrich Bloch's painting of Christ at the Pool of Bethesda, I feel small. There is a stillness, a silence, surrounding it. I lock eyes with the one man staring out of the picture and invariably wonder what he's thinking. Who is he, this man in the red cap? What is his story? Does he ever wonder about that silent girl with the shadowed eyes that stands before him, not moving, solemn and unsmiling? That girl who feels small-- who is comforted by that sense of quiet insignificance?
Some days the smallness is accompanied by other feelings. Gratitude. Appreciation. Awe. A sense of loss and bitterness and betrayal and bewilderment so intense I thought I might be physically ill. I was not comforted by the stillness that day. It was filled with too many other, more violent emotions. It's hard to be comforted when you are trapped by an unanswerable why.
February 13, 2009. 3:30 p.m. I stand with my hands shoved deep in my jacket pockets, staring at the man with the red cap without really seeing him. His image periodically blurs from tears that I ruthlessly wipe away, tears that must, at all costs, be kept from the sight of another human being. There is no one else in the room. I love this painting--the small boy at his mother's side, the question of the man with the red cap, the reflections in the quiet water. I came here seeking to take the stillness into my own heart. But I can't. I can't escape the desperate questions chasing themselves through my mind. I came here to try to pull myself together after spending an hour crying in the gardens outside. If I were merely an observer, I might have said that I shouldn't have had such a violent reaction to a simple letter that told me politely and impersonally that I had not been accepted into the School of Music. But even in retrospect I can't fault myself.
Like any good Mormon girl, I made my choice of major a matter of considerable prayer. I had never had the desire to pursue a career in music--all through high school I had sworn that being a music major simply wasn’t for me. But I was stuck without a direction in my schooling after my first choice had left me high and dry at the end of my freshman year. At the end of the following summer, going into music felt right. So there I was, fresh off a service mission, full of innocence and confidence that the world was mine for the taking. I blithely looked forward to the day when I could say that I was a true music major instead of a mere pre-major with oversized hopes. I worked hard and did what I thought was a commendable job of preparing, auditioning, and applying for the program. In hindsight, I realized that I had done an admirable job, because while I was practicing and studying, I was also learning. In the course of preparing for my audition, I had fallen by degrees in love with the music world--a world where art was the breath of life, and the quest for it could consume you completely. I looked forward with eager anticipation to the day when I could fully participate in that world instead of feeding upon the tantalizing glimpses I had of the life of the insiders. I wanted to be in there, with the real musicians, with more passion than I had ever wasted on wanting to join the popular clique during my awkward junior high years. I had finally found a world that I actually wanted to be an active participant in--something that was only brought to my realization by the abrupt knowledge that I was barred from that inside world. I had tried, but I hadn't made the cut.
All my effort, all my nerves and my fear; all those countless, frustrating, lonely hours in the practice room; that constant, never-ending pressure from knowing that I had to practice, that I had to get better, had come down to this. This. Crying, standing in front of a mute painting, grasping desperately at what little comfort I could find before I had to go out and face the world and its pity.
All the while I was locked in the grip of the why. Why is an invidious word. It embodies all the answers that I will never have. But it tantalizes with the false promise that maybe, just maybe, the answers are out there if I look long enough and ask desperately enough. And stupid as I am, I fall into its trap every time. That’s the reason that I can never put a book down without finishing it first. I can’t not ask for answers. I wanted to know so desperately the reasons behind that rejection letter. Not why I wasn’t good enough--that was a vanishingly trivial detail. No, I wanted to know the eternal, cosmic reasons why my life had to play out this way in the grand scheme of things. I wanted to know why, if I felt so strongly that I needed to go into music because that was where the Lord wanted me to be, why was I not there? Why was it necessary for me to have my hopes shattered? What was the point? My faith told me that there was a reason--mysterious, unfathomable, but existent--that the floor of my world had been ripped out from under my feet. But I could not understand it. I had obediently done all that I could do and then placed the outcome in the hands of powers higher than myself, trusting that I would reach the desired end because I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do. My trust was badly shaken; my faith, damaged. Doubts that I had long held at bay crept in and planted themselves in the darkest corners of my heart. Had I been wrong? Was this all in vain? Had I just wasted months of my life in pursuit of a worthless dream?
But more than anything, I was lost. That part of me that found comfort in my smallness while standing before a magnificent symbol of a man’s devotion to his God was gone, wandering in the darkness and shock that swathed my mind. My childlike faith in a smooth and easy path had vanished. What was I to do now? Why did it have to be this way, God? Why?
I still don’t know. And I suspect I will never know, at least not in this life. The only comfort I can derive from that not-knowing is my faith. Damaged, yes, but never fully eradicated. Because even when I was trapped by that unanswerable and unanswered why, I still believed that God had my best interest at heart. Deep down, I believed.
Standing in the silence before that resplendent altar piece, I look at the man in the red cap. What is he thinking? I always wonder. Perhaps, like me, he is caught in the act of turning to look at someone else. Perhaps he is looking at the source of the stillness, the silence, the peace. Perhaps he, like me, returns again and again to look at the majestic Savior, dressed in white, extending a hand to the crippled and downtrodden. Perhaps he looks at the Lord who takes the smooth and easy path from us so that we might come to understand the depth of our faith.
*******
*******
Author's note: A little more than seven months later, I received a different letter from the School of Music--one congratulating me on my acceptance into the music program.
1 comment:
I like it :) Good work, Peanut Butter Butt!
Post a Comment