Canter Bridge

We live in fear that the cry of our heart shall go unheard.

We could bear up better, perhaps, under mockery or derision than in the face of silence. The dread of no reply is no modern invention. It is bred into the circuitry of humanity’s deep need of conversation:

To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary. (Psalm 28:1–2 ESV)

It is the nature of our frailty that our principal capacity in distress is not to resolve the causes of our pain—they are too abundant and too formidable—but to cry out. We seldom need more room to swing our axe, more elbow grease, a little more time to beat down or outwit our assailants. These are the requirement of the strong, but we are weak.

We need, instead, someone who will listen and respond. We need to see some evidence that heaven stirs on our behalf, some blowing of leaves, some approaching footstep. We need a face, a voice, a savior. We need to be rescued.

The horror of mere silence against the echo of our cry is, often, our deepest grief. Our most dire scenario. Our most repugnant horror.

Well before piety slots into its glib reassurances, there was the earthy shout of a psalm like the twenty-eighth, the clear-eyed recognition of how helpless we are if YHWH does not hear, the hint that he will.

We fix our eyes on the door, wait by the phone, tell the children that Father will be with us soon.

This is no timid evasion but thoughtful, determined hope that the things we have considered real are indeed so. The doorknob may be turning even now. Even here. Silence yields its icy horror to warm, voiced Presence.