God in Absentia

“A Silent Heaven is the greatest mystery of our existence.” So writes Sir Robert Anderson in his 1897 book The Silence of God (in his chapter Where is God When People Suffer?) He further states, “But in vain do we strain our ears to hear some voice from the throne of the Divine Majesty. The far-off heaven where, in perfect peace and unutterable glory, God dwells and reigns, is SILENT!” 

(It should be noted that Anderson’s The Silence of God is about how God is not silent. God has spoken a word, a final word.) 

God in absentia? To be in absentia is to be put on trial in your absence. That is, when you are not physically present. God seems absent, not physically present, and thus we tend to put God on trial. 

Is God absent and far away? Martin Laird, in his book An Ocean of Light, suggests that we misunderstand. God is not far away. God is so close that this is almost unrealizable to us. The idea of Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans, a fearful and fascinating mystery, is that we do not want to acknowledge this closeness, despite our fascination with the mystery, because we fear the trembling. Mystery and fascination, but also the trembling. The solution, according to Laird, is appearing before God in silence, contemplative prayer.

Hermann Hesse’s novella Siddhartha seems to be about the story of the Buddha, in 500 B.C.E. But Hesse can be sly in his writings. It almost appears that in the story that the young Buddha meets THE Buddha, the supreme teacher. But he remains unsatisfied with the teachings. Siddhartha is on a nomadic quest to find something deeper, something beyond that. The story begins with him respectfully defying his father, asking for his permission to leave the Brahmins, the Hindu upper caste he is a part of. They maintain the rituals and the laws. This speaks to our inner challenge to leave the religion of our father to find truth. This is difficult. The novella Siddhartha is about departure.

The letter to the Hebrews is also about departure, the need to leave behind the “religion” of one’s fathers. Paradoxically, it is also a letter of encouragement to the “Hebrews” who have discovered their Messiah. It urges them to not drift back to where they once were, but instead to stay; to move on to maturity and the better things. It contains mystery, trembling, and fascination.