The Breath of Suspense

The calm before the storm.

The long, drawn-out breath of silence before the chaos.

The shadow of night before the dawn.

I wonder to what extent any of us have ever actually experienced these things in a physical sense. I’m sure that many of us have at some point in our lives, in one way or another. Otherwise, the images these words forge in our brains would not be so vivid, concrete, and emotionally stirring. Yes, there is that shadow that overcasts the skies. The deep inhale of nature only to be exhaled in a long breath, a wind that rattles the trees and sends all life into shelter and safety as dark clouds ominously prepare to pour rain upon the earth. The silence is not physical. It is spiritual. For there are many noises around, almost deafening, but the body is immobilized, struck dumb in the moment by a power which can only be described as a command to reverence towards a higher, more powerful being.

And just when all the creatures of the night return to their burrows, a small glimpse of light peaks over the horizon of our world, and the warm rays of the sun illuminate all that remained hidden and secret in the shadows of darkness.

Yes, those images are quite vivid enough without my further attempts to embellish them, and I will not pretend that my week of suspenseful waiting has been anywhere nearly as dramatic or quite as interesting. That is, as you well know, my travel plans were derailed last week, and with the arrival of a new Covid variant in South Africa, whether I will actually leave this coming Friday is completely speculative. But all things happen for a reason, and I am sure that I will eventually see what kind of grace God intended for me. I am so very impatient with things like this. And our good Creator, so compassionate and wise, always does well in humbling me by the most effective means, whether I appreciate those means in the moment should remain unsaid. And indeed, I have already had the grace of spending Thanksgiving with my loving family and friends.

But other than that, what have I done with my time? As is the nature of a Bald, I read, and read, and read. I woke up Monday morning and realized I had absolutely nothing to do. Why? Because I was planning on being half-way across the world that morning. More specifically I was planning on being in Charles-de-Gaulle airport in France, but, again, those are minor details that require no mincing at this point. So I did what seemed natural to me. I opened my backpack, grabbed the four books I intended to read on the plane, and went to town on them. Like all good Balds, I have a pile of “books-to-be-read”. And after having devoured these four and ordered new ones for the plane, it became so apparent to me that it was so clearly intended that I read them before I left.

“Beyond the Rice Fields” is the first Malagasy novel translated to English, and I am so grateful that it is the last book about Madagascar I read. It receives horrible reviews on Goodreads, which is honestly a shame. Yet I understand because, if one were not already steeped in Malagasy history and culture, the true beauty and the pure humanity revealed in its pages become unperceivable. The names, the places, the moments of history, the traditions, and, as always in Madagascar, the fady; they all play their part in this grand drama that follows the story of a slave-boy from a small town to the sprouting factories built by the vazaha (foreigners) in Tana (where I’ll be). Sometimes the wisdom is universal, “That’s the law. The Sovereign is only one above the law and the seasons. The Sovereign alone can ignore clans, prohibitions, and the harvest seasons. The Sovereign’s field is fertile all year long.”

The Malagasy often speak in metaphors and proverbs. To our eyes, this speaks of the privilege of royalty or generally of people in power. And although this is true to an extent, the passage actually specifically refers to sexual mores and promiscuity. It provides us with a much more specific example of how those who write the rules often and easily become inflated and believe themselves above the common man, not unlike the revealed scandalous behavior of those in power of our own times. It seems that hypocrisy is a human rather than a Western trait.

Besides this, and more importantly, I think, I read “Abandonment to Divine Providence”. The timeliness of this book for me is far beyond coincidence. Indeed, it calmed my heart in many ways and helped open my blinded eyes to the movements of God in this present moment. We are where we are because we are needed there in the present moment. But are we attentive to how we are needed in the present moment? On the contrary, are we too inflated with ourselves to believe that we are needed in ways we are unneeded? There is always a thin line between taking command ourselves and trusting in the inspirations of God in the moment. The temptation here is to trust in our own power, to believe that we know what is needed now, falsely believing that our will is God’s. It makes the discernment of spirits and the virtue of humility, something which is all too difficult for me on my own, that much more important. Discerning the origins of our inspirations is imperative yet troublesome at times.

St. Francis de Sales, another I have been reading, encourages us to remain faithful and steadfast in our fidelity, that our minds and hearts, although shaken and troubled by all around us, rest in peace whether in comfort or suffering, constant in all states of life. To live a good life, to be responsive and attentive to the duties of our current vocations, to be kind, loving, compassionate, and always aware of God in the present moment. That is how we know when we are following the will of God, not when we have grand or presumptuous thoughts about ourselves or our intentions, but when we act simplistically and ordinarily out of love in the basest and seemingly minute tasks and interactions with others.

I do believe that anxiety about the future grips us all. It certainly had a hold on me last weekend. But I think I am learning to live and be satisfied with the unknown, the uncertain, not knowing what dawn will bring nor what the storm will be like when it has passed by and has left its mark on wherever its waters happen to land. Will I go to Madagascar on Friday? Maybe. Will I be stuck in the United States? Maybe. It is not necessarily for me to decide or know. And it is certainly out of my hands at this point. There is something liberating in not just knowing but believing this. Have I learned to embrace the present moment? I don’t know. That answer lies in the future, and the future has not yet become the present.

May God be praised.