An Unlikely One
Watercolour ,
20
17 September, (Post) Silent Retreat at Janda Baik, Malaysia
This is a story of an unlikely one.
Not one of those pretty ones with its feathers of soft white that heralds peace and harkens hope. But it was a plain one adorned by midnight, the first one named in the Bible when Noah sent it out after the flood. This one did not return. During the years of famine at Kerith Ravine, God sent different ones to feed Elijah, even though they were marked as unclean and despised by most.
Not one I paid attention to, not when God spoke to me from Job 38 at my first silent retreat and from Psalm 147 at my second silent retreat. Not until I discovered that both verses were connected through the raven.
“Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food? “
Job 38:41
“He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry.”
Psalm 147:9
I gasped silently within. Why the raven?
Young ravens wander about for lack of food, as the old is said to neglect the young. In their anguish, the young ravens would cry out to God and it is He who provides for the young ravens so that they grow up and come to maturity. The raven speaks of God’s providential care.
Perhaps I was the young raven who cried out to God in my helpless anguish during my childhood. The harsh voice of my mother had followed me for most of my life, as has my hate for her. I grew up with a sense of vulnerability in what seemed to be a hostile world. Her angry voice reverberated within me, echoed by my own lips.
But God heard my cry and provided for me, in so many ways that I had been so blind to. One of these would be my father who retired from his work and spent his days with me during my childhood. We had daily excursions, sometimes to the beach where we would catch hermit crabs; sometimes a long walk to nowhere in quiet conversation. My father taught me how to swim and cycle. Some days, he recited poems to me from memory; poems that taught me to see beauty in longings and hope in melancholy. Some days, he placed me in his lap and sang , “you are my sunshine”, showing me what love looked like, shining the light of love into my night.
In my convent schooling years, a priest had been invited to lead a retreat for the graduating secondary school students. On the final day, my classmate asked me to accompany her to meet with the priest for spiritual direction. We gingerly knocked on his door and were invited to sit down on the sofa. Before my friend could speak, the priest turned to me, placed his hand on my head and softly said,
“Do not blame your mother. She was treated the same way.”
I had been a rock who had sealed my heart away and turned my back to the world I had regarded as hostile. I had slowly built an interior castle within, with layers of walls bereft of doors. A hard and impenetrable shell to the outside world, it was an alone space I could dwell in, a fortress for all my feelings and thoughts. “Do not blame your mother. She was treated the same way.” His gentle words reverberated within my quiet hollowness, growing with such increasing intensity that it began to crack the walls that held it. Through the cracks, my tears seeped through, first coming in drops and then pouring in a torrent. I sat alone at the back staircase of my school and used up an entire roll of toilet paper crying. Deep down inside, I knew that my mother loved me dearly. She could not help herself. She loved me the only way she knew how.
That day, God came into my fortress without doors and passed through the thick walls. “Only God can enter a heart uninvited,” a Jesuit told me many years later. Like how God heard the cry of the young raven, He heard mine.
Imprisoned within this dark chasm I had created, I was not free but compulsively driven to keep distance from others even as I desperately yearned for real connections and more intimate relationships.
The uninvited God of grace spoke words of life into the depths of my being and invited me to participate in the fullness of life.
Perhaps this was the beginning of my journey, of letting myself feel deeply again; of opening myself up to human connections; of getting my authentic voice back; of bridging the gap of existential isolation that led to the eventual reconciliation between my mother and I. The journey of the 18 inches between the head and the heart, often described as the longest and the most arduous, had perhaps begun.
Had God been quietly waiting for me to open my eyes to all His secrets and goodness hidden in plain sight? Maybe I was a young raven who could only see my God-given feathers in shades of black.
As I learned how to see the movement of God’s light, it revealed the iridescent midnight, collecting and reflecting the light and the colours of the world around . The shades of black contained a myriad of colours as they sang of a Master creator whose providential care and grace were hidden in plain sight. It is a beautiful place to learn how to see. As I learned how to draw near, the colours of His goodness, His glorious nature and His sweet presence remained even in the midst of the mud of my life.
Mornings and evenings, the ravens brought Elijah bread and meat during the drought. Such were the mysterious ways of God who didn’t send a holy messenger or a clean, white dove but rather bestowed the responsibility on the despised and unclean ravens that were raised by His special providence.
Perhaps the time has come for me to not just be a receiver of the goodness from God but to also be a messenger of God’s providential care. Even as the grounds beneath my feet are shifting and the journey seems to be fraught with uncertainties, doubts and fears, He says to me,
“Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! “
Luke 12:24
This is a story of an unlikely one, made likely by the God who hears our cry and reaches out to us, made likely by the God quietly waiting for us to open our eyes to all His secrets and goodness hidden in plain sight.
