What Do I Know of Holy?

Filled with awe and wonder, they all screamed. They all whispered and all asked me
About this God. About the wonderful relationship I had with this God. And in my pride I gave away bits and pieces of my so-called knowledge of this powerful God. What it took to know him, who he was, his grace, his love. And deeper into my ignorance I dug, thinking that I had figured Him out. I knew everything. Most of all, I knew I was faithful. I still clearly re-call a conversation I had with my mother about the status of my faith, I think I said something to the prideful extent of counting myself lucky for never having doubted God. What little I knew Him, how little my faith was.

Now I'm caught up in a whirlwind of doubt. Of questions. Of tears and pain, and deep loneliness. For a world in which the belief you stood upon wasn't real is a world that is ripping and tearing at the seams.
Like W.K. Clifford writes on the ethics of belief, that a true belief is one that has "stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning."
The blatant acceptance of what I constantly heard had finally hit me. Not because I believed it to be untrue, but because it was not truly a belief I held, in the sense that I did not really delve into it deeply.
"To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances," Clifford writes.
I owed that God. To really delve into true knowledge of his word, of Him, of His truth. To delve into the doubts, into the fears, into the questions and discussions. If I really had said so many years ago that I loved Him, I owed Him the right to get to know Him. For how can you truly love someone if you don't fully know them? How could I truly believe in Him, if I didn't fully know Him? If I hadn't asked the hard questions, and forced an answer out?

If I had just believed simply and purely, would that even be real belief?

I once thought I knew Him. So fully, so perfectly. And sometimes I wish I could go back to my happy ignorant state, and I am by no means saying that I do know Him know. Because I don't.

He is bigger,
He is more mysterious, more confusing, more earth-shattering than ever. And I don't have Him figured out one bit.

I'm trying, and sometimes it seems as if my tries lead straight to the back of the darkest alley.

But sometimes in the powerful wind as the autumn sun sets it seems as if I can feel something. As if I can almost hear something.
And I dare to hope, beyond the tears and loneliness and pain, that I've stepped closer to Him even if only for that moment.

"Night of Fire-Pascal"

The year of grace 1654
Monday, 23 November, feast of Saint Clement, Pope and Martyr, and of others in the Martyrology.
Eve of Saint Chrysogonus, Martyr and others.
From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight.

Fire

'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,' not of philosophers and scholars.
Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
God of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
'Thy God shall be my God.'
The world forgotten, and everything except God.
He can only be found by the ways taught in the Gospels.
Greatness of the human soul.
'O righteous Father, the world had not known thee, but I have known thee.'
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have cut myself off from him.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.
'My God wilt thou forsake me?'
Let me not be cut off from him for ever!
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.'
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I have cut myself off from him, shunned him, denied him, crucified him.
Let me never be cut off from him!
He can only be kept by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Sweet and total renunciation.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and my director.
Everlasting joy in return for one day's effort on earth.
I will not forget thy word. Amen.