Echoes of Whispers: The New Scars of Ageless Woundedness
Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new.
-St. Augustine
Ever Ancient, Ever New
Faith is not new. Religion is older than time immemorial. Man’s search for meaning, for something beyond our reach, sits deep within all our hearts. We seek to reach out, discover that meaning, purpose, peace, joy, or some other greatness that exists beyond ourselves, and bring it back into us and those we love. Yet, as the yearning of our hearts reaches out, we often grasp the wisp of air that finds our palm clasping itself. Sometimes, our reach is met with the grip of another searcher’s reach, another fellow human searching for meaning. Sometimes our reach is burned by something or someone else. Sometimes we grasp on for dear life, as if that returned clasp is life itself. If we search for the divine within the finite, we are left wanting. This wanting can create a discord between the outstretched hearts.
We can see the deep yearning for something true, deeper, and intimate by the presence of so many different religions. Currently, most researchers and global databases (such as the World Christian Database and Pew Research Center) estimate that there are roughly 4,200 to 10,000 distinct religious groups worldwide, including the various sects and denominations of major faiths, such as Catholics, Baptists, and Evangelicals within the broader Christian tradition. This number does not include granular differences in charism or approach, like TLM Catholics as compared to Charismatic Catholics or the Carthusian monks. There is also an estimated 50,000 unique Bibles for sale.
This search for healing and wholeness is not confined to the cathedral or the cloister; it spills over into the clinic. Similarly, if we strip away the religious affiliation and stick simply to clinical pursuits to heal suffering fellow humans, there are a multitude of schools of thought or beliefs regarding what suffering is and how it is helped. In the mental health realm, there are over 500 different branded therapies, all focused on achieving the same fundamental thing, with a nuanced focus on struggles, diagnoses, social injustices, and different worldviews. There is an estimated 500,000 self-help books for sale, currently. For every version of the Bible you can buy, there are about 10 different people trying to sale you another book on how to fix your life.
It’s as if we are all searching for that great thing beyond our reach to speak just to us. Or, perhaps, we buy into the newest hype. Regardless, perhaps the proliferation of choices is less of a comment on the ills of commercialistic PR, and that the commercial demand is a sign of a world that is becoming more and more lost, desperate to be found, to be known.
The New Scars of Ageless Woundedness
We amass these thousands of beliefs and hundreds of therapies in an attempt to treat our fresh scars, yet the ageless wound remains. True wholeness rarely comes from just another human grasp or grasping a newly penned edition; it arrives as a divine interruption.
An epiphanic metanoia of faith, the shock of insight that suddenly aligns the heart to something deeper, all-encompassing, yet beyond itself, is novel and exciting. Lived faith, though, is both comfort and challenge, as life itself is both novel and the same.
Quomnia is neither innovative nor wisened, but a synthesis of the two. The mission is not to elevate any one person, theory, or belief, but rather to walk alongside the human condition and point toward healing and Grace. Much like Mary at the wedding feast, we recognize the need, step aside, point to Christ, and allow the miracle to occur.
The discordant grasping of wisps of air, clawing into any sense of inner peace or greater purpose, is best left outstretched and open, calm, and accepting, clasped together in communal harmony, with those who are true companions with us on our path, or pulled inwards and clasped in prayer of supplication for healing, humility, gratitude, awe, and adoration.
A Still Quiet Whisper
A Bible verse (whichever version you happen to have), that I constantly go back to, is Elijah in the cave.
Elijah fearful of all that had occurred and the task ahead of him, searched for the presence of God in the great winds, the howling power of the storm. He looked for the presence of God in the earthquake, the shaking of the Earth, all that is stable and secure. He looked for God in the roaring fire, that can consume and turn to ashes. Elijah looked to contain God in his own mind, knowing God could not fit in his own mind, he must fit in the things that were greater than him, that held great power over him, but still stuck within the human condition. However, he found God in a still, quiet whisper. God said to Elijah, “why are you here?” God consoled and encouraged and set Elijah back on his mission. As Elijah left the mountain cave, he came upon Elisha, who turned Elijah’s mission from a solitary march of fear to one of accompanied support. Elisha leaves the plow, with an epiphanic metanoia, and moves forward through the struggle with Elijah.
The human search for meaning often begins in the roar of the earthquake and the heat of the fire, the frantic "discordant grasping" for solutions within a world of 10,000 religions and endless self-help iterations. Yet, like Elijah standing at the mouth of the cave, we eventually find that the Divine is rarely captured in the noise of our own effort or the "commercialistic PR" of the new. True finding occurs only when the clawing ceases and the hands are left "outstretched and open," creating a space of quiet receptivity. It is in this radical silence, where the finite ego finally steps aside, that the ageless wound is met not by another human theory, but by the "still, quiet whisper" of Grace, a Divine Interruption that does not shout to be heard, but simply waits to be acknowledged.
The Integrated Heart: The Quomnia Way
This is the synthesis Quomnia seeks to foster. We do not offer another "new" version of the fire or a louder roar of the earthquake. Instead, we invite a return to the integrated heart, a heart that no longer fragments itself between the ancient ache and the modern scar, but allows both to be held in the light of Grace.
Quomnia is not a solitary march or a commercialized fix. It is the practice of standing, like Mary and Elijah, in that quiet middle ground where the human condition meets the Divine Interruption. By integrating the wisdom of the ancient with the reality of our present suffering, we move from the discord of grasping to the harmony of being held.
In this space of synthesis, the heart is finally aligned. We recognize our need, we step aside from the noise, and we allow the miracle, that ancient, ever-new miracle of healing, to occur.
Today, slow down. Take a breath. Examine the struggle. Discern the path forward. Forge through the struggles. Abide in the soft still whisper of his consolation, encouragement, hope, and healing.
