Daily Excerpt: A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God (Elizabeth Mahlou) - To the Reader
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Excerpt from A Believer-in-Waiting by Elizabeth Mahlou.
To the Reader
My first intent was to call this book Hierophany and Contemplation
because that is how my life with God has unfolded. However, the more time I
have spent writing this book, the clearer it has become that a simpler title
would serve better. That is when I remembered the appellation given to me by
friends in Jordan a few years ago: believer in waiting. They refused to accept
my professions of atheism and chose instead to view me as a lost lamb whom God
would scoop up sooner or later, which, indeed, God did.
Along with scooping me up, God gave me the task of writing. Although I
did not gunderstand what that task was to encompass, I did know that this
writing was not to be more of the professional books I publish but rather
writing for the glory of God and especially for those who might also be lost
lambs, believers in waiting, souls chased by the Hound of Heaven, or whatever
other label one might use. It is a task that I sometimes find overwhelming and
that I, admittedly, don’t always want to do. It is, in fact, with some
reluctance that I pen this book for I am certain there are readers who will
consider my tales tall and my experiences outlandish. They sometimes seem that
way to me, too. Moreover, in my state of constant unknowing, I worry about the
danger of deception, which is the reason I seek an external examination of the
authenticity of my experiences before acting on them for fear, especially in
the writing of them, of leading the faithful astray. (After all, who am I to
attempt to explicate even the smallest piece of the greatness of God?)
Yet, I must assume that if these kinds of things happen to me, then they
probably also happen to other people, who may be even more reluctant than I to
share them. I understand their reluctance. After all, William James called the
great Catholic mystics psychopaths. What equally unpleasant labels might be
applied to us lesser souls who today experience supernatural phenomena? Equally
disturbing is the tendency of some fundamentalists to attribute all mysticism
to evil spirits, which baffles me: if they consider demons capable of
communicating with us directly, why would God not be able to do the same? Do
they really consider God less powerful than Satan? “It is a terrible evil,”
says St. Teresa of Avila (Interior
Mansions), “to doubt that God has power to work in a way far beyond our
understanding.”
Although often unbelievable to those who yearn for something that fits
human reasoning, our relationship with God is a simple matter if we let God
direct it. I forget that all too often. I want books. I want to learn from the
great theologians of the centuries. I forget that the greatest Teacher of all
is standing by to help. Sometimes I wonder if my yearning for greater clarity,
for more input, for better understanding annoys the Great Teacher. There are
indeed times when, as I read some renowned treatise about God, I feel as if a
Hand is attempting to cover the page, to pull me back from the mode of reading
to the mode of listening. I am reminded at these times of deCaussade’s caution
in Abandonment to Divine Providence
that we should rely upon God and not upon the interpretation of others, that
human learning may not be what God wants for us or the manner in which God can
best create a relationship with us. Rather, if one waits on God, one grows.
This is what Thomas à Kempis in The
Imitation of Christ labels “the excellence of a free mind, gained through
prayer rather than by study.” As one continues to walk with God, one sees
previous experiences in a new light while the brilliance of one’s first
encounters with God remains as a ubiquitous star, illuminating where one has
been, is now, and will be going. That reality lies at the core of the
experiences shared here.
On a housekeeping note, I confess that in the first chapter of this
book, “A Simple Grace,” I have repeated my conversion story as well as some other
passages from my previous book, Blest Atheist, that are critical for
understanding the post-conversion experiences I share here. I do not apologize
for any overlap between Blest Atheist
and A Believer in Waiting’s First
Encounters with God for conversion is not a one-time, finished product; it
is an ongoing experience, a matter of perennially deepening one’s relationship
with God. In his later years, Thomas Merton said that the autobiography of his
early life, made permanent in The
Seven-Storey Mountain, was no longer him. So, too, I suppose, will Blest Atheist become no longer me with
the passage of time.
On another housekeeping note, I should mention that Elizabeth Mahlou is
the pseudonym I used in writing Blest Atheist. The frank sharing of the
details of an explosively violent childhood while some of the guilty parties
are still alive could potentially have done more harm than good. So, to avoid
harming those who have harmed me, I chose to remain anonymous even while those
in the book publishing business were encouraging me to do otherwise for the
sake of sales and profit. (I don’t need a major publisher with extensive
marketing capacity; God will get even an anonymous book into the hands of those
who need it.)
An equally important reason for using a pseudonym is the nature of this
volume. This book is not about me. It is a love song to the Divine, and without
a person to publicize as the author, I hope the focus will stay where it
belongs: on God. I have used my own life as the content only because what do we
really know except that which we have experienced or witnessed?
To maintain anonymity, I have had to alter some names and locations. Where
nothing harmful would be revealed, I have retained the actual names of places
and, with their permission, of people. Events are true. It is the naming and
locating of them that sometimes has morphed along with details that might be
too revealing.
I would like to acknowledge a special group of people: readers of the
prepublication manuscript. Many thanks to Marie Cosgrove, Renee Espinola, Peggy
Guillory, Dr. Geri Henderson, Anne Laforge, Anais Mora, Barbara Muck, Dr. Rebecca
Oxford, Anne Marie Peloquin, Debb Rodriguez, Silvia Sanchez, Alice Sousa, and
Julie Trudell for reading the draft of this book. Their comments have improved
the book; any errors or omissions that remain are mine.
Finally, I should say that had everything been up to me, I would have
kept the contents of this work to myself, as St. Teresa advocated. Because many
of the events that have occurred in my post-conversion life are personal, they
are the kind of thing that should remain between God and me. However, I have
felt such a push to put them on paper that I assume (hopefully, accurately) the
Divine has a need for someone to know of them.
Upon rare occasion, I find someone who shares some of my experiences. For
both of us, the finding of each other becomes mutual comfort. Perhaps there is
someone out there in the wider universe for whom this book is meant to be such
a comfort, and if that is the case, the writing of it will have been worth the
effort.
Then, too, there are the Bible verses that keep falling under my hand.
For example, we are told in Matthew
5: 14-16 not to hide our light but rather to be witnesses for God: “You are the
light of the world . . . let your light shine before others that they may see
your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven.” Keeping hidden the gifts
that God has given me and the assigned tasks that God has facilitated seems out
of accord with this verse. And so I write of them and place this book in your
hands, dear readers, to do with as you will.
elizabeth mahlou
For more posts about Elizabeth Mahlou and her books, click HERE.
For excerpts from more books, click HERE.
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