Into the dark cave

I liked this article by Mark Galli, Listening for the Whisper

Abstract:
The problem with spectacle, especially religious spectacle, is that the steady, repeated, raucous noise will eventually make us hard of hearing. And that will make it impossible to hear God's normal tone of voice. He is not usually found in earthquake, wind, and fire, but in the small whisper, heard only by those who enter with Elijah into the dark cave.

This whisper is difficult to hear in the din of our culture and religious life. It is also frightening to even to try to listen for it, because to do so we must, like Elijah, enter the dark cave from whence the whisper emerges. That means stepping into mystery.
When you try to practice Elijah-like spirituality, says the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, you will at first

"feel nothing but a kind of darkness about your mind, or as it were a cloud of unknowing. You will seem to know nothing and feel nothing except a naked intent toward God in the depths of your being. Try as you might, this darkness and this cloud will remain between you and your God. You will feel frustrated, for your mind will be unable to grasp him, and your heart will not relish the delight of his love."

Withdrawal from the noise and glitter of religious spectacle sounds like a formula for spiritual suicide—how am I going to even experience God without the pounding of the music and electricity of the crowd and inspirational message of the dynamic preacher? "But learn to be at home in this darkness," says this author, "For in it, in this life, you hope to feel and see God as he is in himself, it must be within this darkness and this cloud."