A Psalm of Hope

“And Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.” - Exodus 20:21

“And Tobias strake of the gall on his fathers' eyes, and the whiteness pilled away from the corners of Tobit’s eyes: and when Tobit saw his son, he fell upon his neck, and he wept.” - Tobit 11:11-13

Open my eyes, O Lord, that I might see you;

See your radiance in the heights,

And in the great depths

Know your love by the darkness.

Reveal to me, O Lord, your glory;

Coat my eyes in your spit and gall

So my blindness might fall away

And I might see you as I know you are.

Why do you elude me, my God?

Your call awoke me—I cried out my desire.

But it seems my prayers were lost.

Your voice fell silent when I searched.

I am a thrall to your beauty,

Past your horizon, unable – unwilling – to escape,

But silence has enveloped me.

I’ve heard and loved and known you,

And yet I fear it has been vain;

In solitude, my unvoiced doubts take hold:

Are you the figment of my pious hope?

Into the gaps I drive you,

Leaving you no space in my mind

Except amongst what I do not know. 

Perhaps there you are hardest to ignore.

Breath is easy to forget;

The heart beats silent once you trust it is there.

My God, whose calls come in silence,

You spill out of the billion billion gaps

And my sight darkens

So I can almost glimpse your face.

How can we see anything approaching the Lord’s glory and not be struck blind and numb to it? And, once overwhelmed, how do we stand firm in faith when He falls quiet? In trying to capture the distress of these moments, I was reminded heavily of the theophanies in darkness, silence, and repulsion that fill the scriptures and wanted to build on scripture’s inversion of our intuitive responses to these parts of creation which can mediate God to us. Our God is not only Light from Light, but also one who makes darkness His cloak and weakness His strength.