I was familiar with the experience of a “fertile void” when
Nancy, my spiritual director, mentioned it. I just didn’t know it by that name.
I’ve known seasons when all seems quiet on the surface of my life, but I’m
aware of a subtle stirring beneath the quiet; a place where things are
composting—where my inner life is being turned over, my psychological
structures broken down, in order to become more deep and real and fertile.
It’s not an all-together comfortable place. A part of me chaffs
in the waiting; feels uneasy and wonders what I should do to stir things up
myself. It doesn’t take long, though, to discover the vanity of trying to hurry
the decomposing and reconstituting of my inner life and soul. The invitation
during a fertile void is to rest in it and trust the process of it.
The reason I suspect for this season of fruitful emptiness
is the fact that I’ve just finished the manuscript for my next book and I’m
feeling the let-down. I’ve turned a corner into December, toward the Advent of
Jesus, and I’m numb and honestly a little bored. I felt hopeful when Nancy
suggested that I’m in a fertile void. I know that good things happen when a
field is allowed to go fallow for a season; when I cease striving and rest in
the knowledge that God is God and I am not (God).
Then I thought about Advent; how it's like a fertile void. Advent is a time of waiting during
a silent, holy night; watching with anticipation for the birth of Jesus. We wait
in hope that he will come again; today, tomorrow and the next. We linger in the
stillness and look for his yet-to be seen holy visitation. The invitation of
Advent is to cease striving and consent to the deeper, quieter work of God in
the silent, holy night.
