"Are you experiencing any anxiety in the moment?"
"Just anxious to go home," I joked. I always joke. It alleviates the obvious tension in the room and brings a smile to my awkward conversation partner. It works like a charm every time.
But this time is different. My joke elicits a small smirk from the crisis worker, but she bows her head slightly and closes her eyes for just a moment before saying, "I don't think that's going to be happening."
I was in shock. I had been charming, warm, honest... all the qualities that were supposed to communicate that I was stable and therefore primed and ready to go home. And oh how I wanted to go home. But that wasn't going to be happening. Not for another four days.
For four days I rested, read, went to therapy, ate regular meals, took my daily medications, all on a tight schedule that ticked like clockwork. It was predictable, steady, unwavering. I mimicked the stability they hoped to instill in my heart and mind.
I sobbed shaky tears the first twelve hours I was there. Anything and everything set me off. The worst was when I was granted a phone call and heard my mother's voice on the other end of the line. I had no words for her. Only tears.
As time progressed in my forced retreat, the tears lessened. But the words still didn't come. I was known on the wing as the "Quiet One" and nurses took great pride in getting me to speak just a few words to them at a time during my daily self check-in's. I found words only when I prayed from the Book of Common Prayer. I recited the same morning, afternoon, and evening prayers day in and day out. I read slowly and deliberately, savoring the words and letting them permeate my mind and calm my soul.
Often when someone says they have a "spiritual experience" I expect a story that is likened to the powerful visions of a Julian of Norwich or Catherine of Sienna. I expect stories where clouds open up and hearts are strangely warmed and a palpable presence is in the room.
I experienced none of this, though I would be lying to say it was not one of the richer faith experiences of my life. For in the silence of a hospital wing, I found a language to speak. The written prayers started out as words foreign to me. Awkward words that came fumbling out and landed flatly in the room, going nowhere and doing nothing. But as time went on, the prayers became my own. I spoke them silently, moving my lips in hushed whispers and yet I could feel the growing truth of them in my mind.
Many people have described their faith as the rock on which they have stood in the tough times. I find my faith is more like dew, settling silently on my heart and often evaporating just as quickly as it comes. I crave the moments in the first light of morning when that dew settles afresh on my heart and I speak words that are now familiar, old as time and rich with truth. I've learned in those dew-drop moments that I am indeed surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and their language of faith has become my own.