The Crucifixion of Love in the Absence of Consolation

We come upon truth and find we have been deceived.

Disillusionment falls like a hailstorm upon our mind

and pierces our heart. Tears pour out like rain,

puddling upon the floor.

On our knees, we cry out,

we cry out, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" For we have walked our path, died of self, carried our cross,

loved, lived mercy. We have forgiven seventy times seven times seven times seven.

We have discovered our poverty — reliance on God only...

...Have we...?

Here we are, finding our face to the ground again.

— So much judgment, manipulation and false behavior

has fallen upon us again,

And we try to piece it together,

to make sense of what has happened. We begin to lose our faith — thought we had already understood all of this before. Thought we knew why we were doing what we were doing. Others attempt to help, they assess. Still, nothing makes sense. They think you have made bad choices or decisions. They want to fix it, to fix you. They want you to fix you. Again,

you are broken in this world.

They see you as broken. Your pain risks breaking them, and so they have to piece you back together to fit their lens — and now, you begin to fall through the floor and the splinters of their perceptions nail you to the cross they have built for you, and your continued trials and tears

splinter their "ability to help." And so in their idea of your resistance, they walk away. Any attempt at understanding

seems to cause only more pain.

And your eyes, sealed closed

from the soreness of those tears,

surrender to the blindness that is seen — This blind trust of poverty into the abandonment of divine providence you have lived —- upon all the understanding you had gained through your walk.

You have tasted — drank in the profound love. You have experienced lover and beloved creator as one, your lips have kissed,

been kissed by the breath of visitation,

audible voice and humbling Grace of Christ's coming to bring you into his heart. All the many gifted "moments,"

and now here you are,

blind and the shedding of all to the abiding only in love has crucified you again. As many say, "well, if there is no self, then who is feeling the pain? Why are you suffering if there is no you? No self is not just a cosmic energy.

No self has no individual

separate from anything,

and yet love is. And love is movement and exchange.

Love denied, assaulted, rejected, misunderstood again and again,

feels and responds, for love lives only to abide and be love. And now in this blindness,

love cannot be seen, cannot be spoken, not tasted. So now another death of self is here. If there is no self,

what is this self you speak of?

It is the experience of finding even thought, of "understanding no self."— Anything that sticks to understanding is not the understood. Very humbling.

It is also the humility of not even seeking to answer "Your own" questions, nor others' questions anymore. There is Only One that answers, and the mind quiets and the mind awaits what is to show.

Love is intimacy, and intimacy is vulnerability, and vulnerability experiences tribulation. And the deepest intimacy is intercessory.

Tribulation, affliction, doubt

come with gifts — humility to surrender into gentleness.

Quietness and assurance,

will and do fill the soul.

Love, adorn us in your garments

of tenderness and mercy.

Light our walk

with your grace...

There is a passage in the life of the soul where even the memory of God becomes a veil.

What once burned with nearness — voice, presence, intimacy —

is withdrawn, not as absence of truth,

but as the removal of all that can be held onto as certainty.

Here, the cry arises — not as question, but as participation:

Why hast Thou forsaken me?

Not spoken toward the divine,

but spoken from within the very place where the divine seems hidden.

This is the mystery of the cross lived inwardly —

not as symbol, but as condition.

All that was relied upon — understanding, surrender, even the knowing of union —

is stripped of its function as ground.

What remains is not clarity,

but exposure.

And in that exposure, the world responds as it must:

it interprets, it diagnoses, it attempts to restore coherence.

But what is occurring cannot be restored to coherence,

because it is the undoing of the one who seeks coherence.

Thus, misunderstanding becomes part of the crucifixion.

Not incidental — but essential.

To be seen wrongly

while being emptied truly

is to stand where no defense remains.

The blindness that follows is not deprivation.

It is a deeper seeing —

a seeing without image, without confirmation, without felt assurance.

A seeing that does not see itself.

Here, love is revealed in its most hidden form.

Not as warmth.

Not as consolation.

Not as nearness felt.

But as that which remains

when nothing of love can be experienced.

Love, denied expression, still abides.

Love, rejected, does not withdraw.

Love, unseen, continues to be.

And in this, a profound correction is given:

That love is not dependent on experience of love.

The question of “who suffers” dissolves here.

For suffering is no longer owned —

and yet it is not absent.

It is borne.

Not by an individual,

but within the field of love itself.

This is the mystery of intercession.

Where intimacy is no longer reciprocal in feeling,

but becomes participation in the weight of all.

To carry without claiming.

To feel without identifying.

To remain without assurance.

Even understanding is crucified.

Every formulation, every clarity, every realization —

seen as insufficient to hold what is.

And so the mind yields.

Not into ignorance,

but into a deeper obedience:

to wait without reaching.

What begins as abandonment

is revealed, in its depth,

as the most intimate union.

Not union that can be known,

but union that remains

when nothing can confirm it.

And so the prayer that emerges is no longer a request for relief,

but a yielding into what is already moving:

Love, clothe this in tenderness.

Love, walk this in mercy.

Not to escape the crucifixion —

but to remain within it

as the very life of grace.

This is the hidden life of love:

unseen,

unfelt,

yet utterly faithful

to its own being.