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For the Morguerat seeking once again to be “Sir”
The mystics speak of a thing called the Dark Night of the Soul, and by it they mean that time of cold and painful loneliness when the deity to whom one has surrendered his heart withdraws into a distant silence, a distance and a silence that withholds all words of insight and consolation and the comfort of presence. Those whose faith is but faith in consolation and comfort grow frustrated, weak and eventually faithless before such unremitting silence. These are those who flee the dark night for other things, easier and more ready to hand sources of comfort and consolation. And in fleeing the dark night of their souls for the ready daylight of something else they give themselves over to darkness of a much different, much more sinister type. Then there are those who endure the dark night, refusing to leave despite its pain, refusing any consolation save that one which is the greatest, and who beat against the unyielding silence of the dark night with the prayers of their hearts. These are those who come by slow degrees to recognize the trial of the dark night as a trial of fidelity. And in remaining faithful here grow strong in their faithfulness to the point where the darkness and the silence are seen as that place in which their faithfulness stands resolute and expectant before that one whose presence alone brings consolation.
The night has been dark indeed for the warrior, and long has its dark and unremitting silence hung over him. Still he turns his face upward. Still he seeks. Still he refuses the path of the faithless. Still he remains before his silent god. Even here in this place of darkness and death. Even here where the memories of the terrible pains he had to endure calls out to him to turn his back on the deity who did nothing to protect him. Even here his heart is firm.
And so it happens that here where the darkness is great that the night begins to give way to morning. As silent as the night he has endured for so long, as silent as the grief within his heart, so is the silence of that which now comes to pass, for what happens here is between a man and his god. A single word spoken with quiet assurance rises from his heart to his lips, “Yes.” And in the silence of a touch there is a closing of wounds and an easing of pain and a restoration of life. And from these things that take place within him, the warrior reaches outward once more to Larry. And there as well wounds are closed and pain is removed and life is restored.
Larry rests now, asleep in silence. And despite the bedlam that has broken out around him, there is silence within the warrior. But it is not the silence of night.
[ 11-21-2005, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: Cyril Darkcloud ]
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