The Secret Signature of the Soul

"All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for'. 

We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want... While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."  

-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

She became aware again and knew immediately where she was. It wasn't a surprise, but she didn't know what to expect.

The first thing she noticed was the silence. A silence that made her realize that she'd never truly known silence before. There was no ringing in her ears, no pop when she swallowed. No rustling in the breeze. Complete and total nothing.

She opened her eyes. Above her was the bluest sky with the whitest clouds. She sat up and looked around. She was in a small clearing of the greenest grass surrounded by tall wildflowers saturated in the deepest, brightest colors she'd ever seen. The tallest trees. She processed each of these things in her mind as the quietest superlative.

She breathed in deeply and closed her eyes. She felt like that deep breath could keep every cell of her body supplied for days. The old home, still clear in her memory, always had a smell in the same way it always had a sound. The air here smelled like all things pure and created instead of all things stale and chemically invented. She leaned back into the grass and breathed again.

The grass was soft beneath her. She could feel each blade with a newfound exactness of sensation in her skin. Everything looked, smelled, and felt more real, but it came to her slowly, invading her senses as she took it all in. It overjoyed without overwhelming. It was all so new, but she didn't feel anxious. She felt a peace about waiting there in that clearing for whatever came next.

She stretched her arms and legs and smiled at the lack of ache and stiffness. Her body felt light, as if she were only lying on the ground because she was choosing to, but if she were to let go, gravity would have no effect. Every pore of her skin felt truly clean. She didn't itch anywhere. She wasn't hungry or tired... She reveled in the lack of what she'd never noticed had been so constantly bothersome.

Then, she heard her name.

We've all had people say our name and thought, "Ugh. Wish he/she didn't know my name. It just sounds wrong." We've all, I hope, had those moments also when someone says our name and thought, "Wow! I didn't even know he/she knew my name! I'm practically famous! I love how it sounds when he/she says it!" It may have been a crush in middle school or am admired teacher you secretly hoped would call on you in class, but it might as well be Meryl Streep thanking you by name from the stage of the Academy Awards. Certain people hold an intimate power over us when they call us by name. It says, "I know you."

The voice that called out from the silence broke a seal over her ears and in flooded such a music. A song you couldn't recall finally heard again on the radio. A guitar lick played over and over again that never loses the spell it has on your soul. Your stomach and heart switching places for its beauty that touches you where nothing else can. That was her name in the care of his voice. She sat up and froze.

He stepped into the clearing. Her heart skipped a beat or two. Took a break, really. Just couldn't handle it.

There's no use in describing him because language only gets us so far in metaphor and simile. Just remember the most beautiful things you've seen. The most beautiful people and landscapes and art and stories. The beauty behind them--that certain beyond-ness that makes your chest throb achingly with a longing to be united with that beyond-ness. He was that beyond-ness.

So often, in the old world, she'd been held back from thinking of him as knowing her and hoping to know him. For one thing, he was too great and she so small. One of several billion. Not all that special.

Also, people would say, "Don't go all 'Jesus is my boyfriend,'" and "Don't think of God as a big, benevolent grandfather in the sky." She knew he was more than that and different than that, but she also knew that whatever he was and whatever he was to her, he was beyond those things. Encompassing them and adding to them. He came first and taught her through the flawed and incomplete pictures of the old world. So she wasn't going to overestimate him. She was afraid of her own imagination, though. Afraid of worshiping her idea of him instead of him. In the prayers she dreamed to him, she always added, "I know you're more...and different. Help me to know who you really are. Even though I'm afraid sometimes. Maybe even of being disappointed. Show me you are better than who I think you are. Show me who you know yourself to be."

Here in the clearing, that fear vanished. The limitations of who she had been were gone and all misconceptions forgiven. When he spoke her name, she knew that she would never be disappointed. When she saw his face, the way he looked at her, the battle between who she wanted him to be and the little she felt she truly knew was over. None of it mattered anymore because he was really here and so was she. Not in the old way with its dimness and distance and limitations but in the new.

But she was still aware of her smallness and humanity.

And he stood there. He just looked with a gaze that she couldn't be sure she understood. It looked like deep relief. After some time, maybe a minute or an hour, he stepped closer and held out his hand to effortlessly pull her up. And it was so real. And so strong. A scar in the wrist to deepen the flood of feelings spreading through her as she tried to grasp the moment.

Why was she crying? No tears allowed, right?

He reached down and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I said I'd wipe them away," he said, smiling. "It's okay to cry." He'd read her mind and she was afraid. "Don't be afraid," he said, "I've always known what you were thinking."

She found her voice, reminding herself that things were different now but that this was the same one who'd thought her up. Made her. Loved her beyond all reason and sacrifice. Given her life and new life. His spirit was in her. She could talk to him. She had for years and he'd heard her as clearly as he could now. It was just so real to her now.

"I'm sorry...for everything. I know you've already forgiven me, but being here--with you--and it's just so different, and I just--" She had never even considered falling to someone's feet before, but her knees gave out under her in sheer humility before this strong and gentle grace.

He pulled her back up on her feet and cupped a hand under her chin. For the first time, she looked straight into his eyes. They were black as space and speckled with the stars of the universe.

"We can talk through anything you want before we go into the city to meet with the others," he said. "I will answer all your questions and help you process through things, but I want you to hear me say this now, in person." He took her face in his hands so she couldn't look away. "You are restored to me. And I am so glad you are here. You were made for this and now nothing can steal you away from me. You're mine and I've made you like me."

And he called her a new name. A name she knew was only for them to know and was only hers out of all people. She realized that she would know him in a way only she could and he knew her as only he could. Her heart nearly broke with the beauty of understanding that reality.

A tear made its way down his own cheek and she couldn't stand how much she loved him. He pulled her into his arms and all was well. She rested her head on the heartbeat of the universe and felt the warmth of his life flow into her as her own heartbeat came to match his. She absorbed the strength and goodness and grace and love that radiated through his skin. Any remaining guilt, reservations, and shadows fell away as he held her, sharing himself. She was, all at once, his creation, his daughter, his sister, his new lover, his wife of a hundred years and still something beyond all that.

She breathed in the scent of a thunderstorm. With the next breath, she breathed in an unnamed smell that took her back to a moment or dream in childhood. Then another and another. "You smell like faithfulness," she said softly, a little shy all of a sudden. "Your worship has always given me such great joy," he said with a quiet laugh.

She asked him questions from the old life and he gave her answers and helped her understand the toughest parts of living in a fallen world. Why the babies died and why evil triumphed so many times. She worshiped him in awed whispers as she knew him more. And he never let go of her--no matter what she asked. He held her tightly to his chest like he'd been waiting to do this for a thousand lifetimes. They talked and laughed and cried and never grew weary. 

And so they stood there under the bluest sky that never went dark. There would be time with the others. But now was for them. She was not keeping him from anyone or anything. They could stand there in that clearing for an hour or a few years and that it would be okay. Non-linear eternity. 

"...all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

-Julian of Norwich