In previous posts we have seen that the goal of worship and prayer in general, but especially of contemplative worship and prayer, might be described as coming into the presence of God. This does not mean having visions of singing angels, or streets paved with gold. The practice of the presence of God is at once quieter and more serious. It does not take me out of myself, so much as it brings me to a deep and peaceful confidence that God does exist, and that He is present in, or perhaps better, present to the world, in a mysterious way we cannot fully understand.
Let us now consider the words “Our Father,” as understood in the light of the Syriac tradition. Often it helps to look at familiar passages from the New Testament in Syriac. This provides a fresh perspective on what we thought we already knew well enough, and brings us into direct contact with an ancient language which is a dialect of the tongue Our Lord spoke, and is well-fitted to express the religious culture in which He lived, and thus to more faithfully represent the mind of Scripture.
The first line of the prayer is: Aboun d.baš.ma.yō, Our Father, who (is) in heaven
The first word, Aboun, means “Our Father.” As John Bennett, a modern mystic pointed out, to be a Father is not the same as being a Creator. Our Lord deliberately spoke of the “Father,” in all four of the Gospels; and taught us that we should think of him that way. The difference is that a Father is a Creator who puts something of Himself into His children. Something of his very being remains inside them, and can never be removed, for it has become part of their being, too. The children are not other and apart from Him no matter how far they may be from Him. The emphasis of Christ upon the Fatherhood of God is one of the most distinctive marks of Christianity.
Thus, as many including Bennett and Gurdjieff have pointed out, we are all children of our common Father, and He expects that we should not only speak of ourselves as being brethren, but live that way. When we pray Aboun, we are not addressing God as my father but as our father. I am therefore also, in the same breath, declaring myself the brother or sister of all humanity: they are thus included in my prayer, or at least not foreign to it. After all, can we say “Our” Father while thinking that it only means me? Or some group of people whom I particularly like?
From our perspective today, this means that we are surely right to believe that God our Father is concerned for us, and will hear our call. The real question for us is: do we hear His calling us? If we wish to hear him, then we will need to wait in silence, but not just any silence – the absence of noise – it needs to be the silence of presence, a silence with an aim which is felt in the deepest parts of ourselves which we can reach. These parts are deeper than words, hence their quality of stillness; and they are patiently striving to sense the presence of He who transcends all words and thought.
People often pick up half of a truth and then treat that as if it were the whole of the matter. In this way, we have trends come and go in religion and spirituality; because, having seen something, it has a certain vogue, but it does not last because its foundations are not complete.
Something similar has happened with silence. It is not enough not to speak, as the Preacher in Jerusalem said: there is a time to be silent, and a time to speak. If we are to fruitfully contemplate God in silence, then we must pay attention to the words of the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
In the Syriac, this is Tou.bay.houn lay.lairn dad.Kairn bleb.houn: d.he.noun neH.zoun la.lō.hō (Matthew 5:8) Syriac has several words for purity, the meanings of which overlap. This particular root, d.Kō has the basic meaning of “to be (or) to be made pure, clean.” It is used of ceremonial purification, of refining metals, and even of pruning vines. It can include the natural goodness and innocence which we call “purity,” but even more than this, I suggest, it refers to the cleanness which has been won by efforts to purify.
This makes sense: many adults, myself included, can well remember that when we were children God and His angels seemed so near. The blue sky above us was the fringe of the cloak which the Mother of God wore. But now that we have grown, we cannot, as St Paul said, continue to live in the world of the child. However, it is possible for us to cleanse our hearts, that is, to overcome our vices, our negative emotions, and our weakness, by seeing where we have gone wrong and correcting our courses.
When I was a boy, I was fit. I had enough strength for everything I needed to do. As I grew older, different things happened, and as a result of an accident, my back was put out. I could not even sit straight for more than a moment, and that would throw my shoulders and neck out. The strength I had had as a child was no longer sufficient for me: I had to develop my adult muscles. I had to attain to a greater degree of fitness appropriate for my larger body and muscles, and the more sophisticated demands of maturity. I had to take professional advice, learn about the body, and how to care for it, and then put it all into practice.
Something similar, I suggest, is the case with purity. When an adult seeks purity he is not beginning with a child’s innocent heart, but with an adult’s experience, and adult’s mind. A child has many advantages: a child is trusting because it cannot imagine duplicity in other people. But we can, in fact, we know that we ourselves have been deceitful. As God said to Cain, sin is crouching at our door, desiring to waylay us, but we must master it.
This mastery of sin through the aim for the holiness of God is one way of thinking about the purity of heart which will enable us to see God, as Our Lord promises.
And this now shows us something about the way to a godly silence: it is not enough to merely sit quietly and expect graces to fall into our laps. We have thought and feelings, we must have them. We have duties and obligations, and thus are responsible adults with real and valuable connections to the worlds in which we live: our family, workplace, society, and God. The silence we seek is an ordering of all our faculties: mental, emotional, and physical, so that the entire man is at peace because he vigilantly waits in the presence of God: “still as a slave before his lord,” as Coleridge put it. Rather, the silence we seek comes about because my attention is in a part of myself deeper than words, and is seeking contact with He who is above them.
In our case, however, that stillness is animated by divine love, because our Lord is not merely our king, He is also Our Father. We address him as aboun d.baš.ma.yō. Our Father in heaven.
