This post considers, and tries to learn from, two sayings by John of the Cross found in his Sayings of Light and Love (in The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Revised Edition, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1991). These are sayings 88 and 34, respectively:

“Preserve a loving attentiveness to God with no desire to feel or understand any particular thing concerning him.”

“Well and good if all things change, Lord God, provided we are rooted in you.”

The first of these sayings suggests that a person who loves God, or who would like to know God, should try to remain flexible and on the lookout for divine “signs” or “showings” in any of all the specific forms these may take. We can easily find ourselves wishing to experience God, or asking specific questions about God, sometimes with considerable urgency. “Does God exist?” “What is God like?” “What does God want me to do?” “Does God really love me, even though I feel cut off or have, perhaps, never been consciously aware of his presence or of any concern for me on his part?” Sometimes the questions or the desires are not so sharply formulated, but they may be present nonetheless. John recommends that we set such questions and desires aside, if we can, and instead focus a receptive and expectant awareness “in God’s general direction”, however we may conceive of that. The implication is that feeling and understanding in relation to God come more reliably by open waiting and watching than by determined seeking and longing in a particular direction.

The second of these sayings suggests that among all things, only one thing is truly necessary, and that we can live a good life if we manage to maintain a firm connection with that one thing, even if everything else around us and within us should be shaken up and changed with no hope of restoration.

But how can one remain rooted in something which one cannot, at least at certain times, feel or understand? And how can we be sure that God himself will not change in an upsetting way?

My feeling is that trust and confidence in God (or whatever name by which we know “him”) can indeed survive even the bleakest of apparent absences, maintaining its strength no matter what may change – even should God itself transform into quite “another” form. Hope, love, and loyalty are stronger than time and everything it can touch.

Perhaps this is only true once God’s greeting, which is always unexpectedly and overwhelmingly beautiful, is consciously experienced; for how can I love and trust that which I have never experienced? Still, the rule seems to be that “Once is sufficient; constant contact would be unspeakably sublime, but is not necessary.” For once I have been visited, that visitation is more real, more profound, and more pervasive than any misery or merely earthly happiness could ever be. It colors everything, lifts my eyes to higher things, orders my faculties and my memory, guides my love and my compassion, and pours its own dynamic energy into all my daily activities, thoughts, and feelings, and through me it flows out into this body, this world, and this universe – and perhaps into universes unknown.

And for those who lack this visitation and this greeting, what is their portion? John seems to say that loving attentiveness is possible, even toward something one does not know and cannot well imagine. Perhaps, based on one’s most dearly felt emotions and one’s most cherished ideas, one can form as it were a distant shadow image of a far greater presence, something or someone possessing unfathomable subtlety and invincible power, forming – out of itself, perhaps – and replenishing our worlds and ourselves, giving life, inspiring hope and love, and granting the fulfillment of desires. Maybe this presence or being has its own desires, its own hopes and dreams. Consider: you yourself are a creature born and bequeathed to existence from this desire.