bubbly

It’s kind of hard to tell what exactly she’s drinking, but it’s a melody of healthstuff with a root beer-tasting harmony. Strange. Brown. Dusty. Curious. She wonders if it will cleanse her liver or brighten or skin or simply cause grumbling gas bubbles in her stomach tomorrow at an unfortunate lull in a meeting. She hopes not the latter.

She swirls around the brown mass and takes another sip.

Her recent muteness beckons for explanation, but the only explanation she can find is that of Louise Gluck’s Faithful and Virtuous Night, where one’s soul retreats and returns, empty-handed, like a “diver with only enough air in his take to explore the depths for a few minutes or so.”

For one so emotional, so drive by their feelings, it feels wrong and distant to stop by your notebook with a pencil in your mouth and just not feel as if there is anything worth writing about. There were always words and always feelings, now she is short-staffed, as though her emotions have betrayed her and have found a new residence and a new master. She bites the lip of her cup furtively and remembers how many times she asked God to help her not be so emotionally-driven, and wonders if this is an answer to that prayer. Perhaps God is removing some of the emotion, teaching her to live by faith. She, on the other hand, is still praying in the house, while Peter knocks outside the door. No, she says. I can’t be him. I must still pray. Perhaps Peter ought to throw a rock through her window or dig a hole into the basement. Hellloooooo. He would shout into her deaf unbelief.

Do you ever feel like you forget what you prayed and asked for, then suddenly, you’re confronted with something and realized you prayed for that months ago and are just realizing that God answered? Mmm…yeah. Yesterday, she prayed that God would build her faith and teach her to live by faith, not feelings. Today, she is looking for her feelings amongst the brownish sludge of a dry well, and is coming up short.

Thankfully, God does not live in unforgotten galaxies, reluctant at the very least and powerless at the very most do intrude upon our quiet evenings and produce knocks on our doors.

His are knocks that are both loud and tenacious, and also quiet and consistent. We would do well to expect them.