Walking in the Valley of Twofold Solitude

DOUG MCMANAMAN

The story of Helen Keller is a fitting analogy containing all sorts of clues about the nature of prayer. For we live in the midst of a world to which we are blind and deaf


Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan
Helen Keller was born in 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Most of us are familiar with her life story from having seen the movie The Miracle Worker. When Helen was just 19 months old, she almost died of an illness, the nature of which to this day remains a mystery. The illness left her blind and deaf. From that day on until she met her tutor, Ann Sullivan, Helen lived surrounded by silence and darkness,1 forced to "walk in the valley of twofold solitude".2

It is difficult to imagine what it would be like having to live permanently without the sense of sight and hearing. I have often closed my eyes and plugged my ears for a few seconds trying to come to some appreciation of her condition, but the difficulty of having to teach a language to a child unable to see and hear is almost impossible to fully appreciate.

Helen grasped universal concepts, and before meeting Ann Sullivan, she had developed her own way of communicating her ideas. She writes: "Soon I felt the need of some communication with others and began to make crude signs...If I wanted my mother to make ice-cream for dinner I made the sign for working the freezer and shivered, indicating cold."3 But how does a child draw a connection between a gesture that has become an established sign, and the thing signified, thus apprehending its sign value, without being able to see or hear? That was the principal difficulty in trying to teach Helen language.

Her condition is useful in demonstrating to philosophy students the difference between intelligence and sensation (both internal and external). It is also useful in highlighting man's personal nature. A person (from the Latin per sona: 'through sound') is a communicator, an intelligent creature that longs to enter into communion with others through word or language. Feeling as if trapped within that twofold solitude, she writes:

...the desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used became less and less adequate, and my failure to make myself understood were invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic efforts to free myself.4

Wordlessly, her soul cried out for light, and her cry reached fever pitch just before Ann Sullivan entered her life to bring her the freedom and light for which she longed.

Wordlessly, her soul cried out for light, and her cry reached fever pitch just before Ann Sullivan entered her life to bring her the freedom and light for which she longed.5 The breakthrough came one day when Ann placed her hand under the spout of a well as someone was drawing water. Ann spelled the word water in the opposite hand as the cool stream gushed over the other.
Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten — a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.6
In time those barriers were indeed swept away, and when we read her writings, we are inevitably awestruck that the rich descriptions that practically lift and carry the beauty of creation to the reader's eyes and ears have come from a woman who was completely blind and deaf. And what is particularly notable is the tremendous joy that she was able to get out of life, a life that was so much less than that of others, at least in terms of her ability to take in all that the liturgy of creation has to offer. So many aspects of the beauty of the natural world were closed off to her, and yet she had a remarkably rich apprehension of nature's magnificence. She could not hear the charming sounds of crickets, birds, or the swaying leaves of fall, nor could she appreciate the colors of rose or honeysuckle. She could only touch and smell their splendor. But with the less she was given, it seems she could apprehend so much more than most of us who have more natural potential. She writes:
The treasures of a new, beautiful world were laid at my feet, and I took in pleasure and information at every turn. I lived myself into all things. I was never still a moment; my life was as full of motion as those little insects that crowd a whole existence into one brief day....Here were great oaks and splendid evergreens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the branches of which hung garlands of ivy and mistletoe, and persimmon trees, the odor of which pervaded every nook and corner of the wood — an illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad.7

  

Blind and Deaf We Pray

The story of Helen Keller is not only useful for clarifying certain philosophical distinctions about knowledge and sensation; her life is a fitting analogy containing all sorts of clues about the nature of prayer. For we live in the midst of a world to which we are blind and deaf, that is, we live in the midst of a preternatural world. The veil that separates us from this world was momentarily lifted for John, in the book of Revelation. Caught up in ecstasy, he had a vision of heaven's liturgy in which he saw One seated on a throne, whose appearance had a gemlike sparkle as of Jasper and Carnelian. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones upon which were seated twenty-four elders, clothed in white and wearing gold crowns. Before the throne he saw seven flaming torches, who are the seven spirits of God. Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder were heard coming from the throne, and at the center, surrounding it, stood four living creatures covered with eyes front and back:

Day and night, without pause, the creatures sang: 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, He who was, and who is, and who is to come!' Whenever these creatures give glory and honor and praise to the One seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before the One seated on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever. They throw down their crowns before the throne and sing: 'O Lord our God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power! For you have created all things; by your will they came to be and were made!' (Rv 4, 8-11)

In prayer, the spiritual sense of touch and smell are as it were one sense; for the divine touches are fragrant. God sends the fragrance of his ointments, drawing the soul onwards and after him. Eventually, though, these divine touches begin to heal and restore the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen, which, according to Augustine, is our whole business in this life.

There is no physical distance between God and ourselves; for it is in Him that we live, move, and have our being (Acts 17, 28). And there is no physical distance that separates us from the angels and the communion of saints, whom John beholds in this vision. They are present to us, all around us, but we cannot see or hear them. We are a bunch of Helen Kellers in relation to this preternatural world, this heavenly liturgy that is perpetual and full of sound and light. But we can become aware of the presence of this world outside (praeter) of us. Like Helen, we can explore it with the power that we have been given and come to an intimate knowledge of it. We explore it through the spiritual sense of touch and smell that are active when we pray. To pray is to enter into communication with that world. We cannot hear them or see them, but we can feel touches from heaven if we pray often, that is, if we acquire the habit of prayer. If we accept the blindness that is ours and pray in a spirit of faith and trust that there is a world separated from us by nothing other than a thin veil that is not so much outside of us as within us, we will eventually come to recognize the touches of God, as Elijah did on Mount Horeb:
Then the Lord said, "God outside and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by." A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord — but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake — but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire — but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave. (1 K 19, 11-13)

In prayer, the spiritual senses of touch and smell are as it were one sense; for the divine touches are fragrant. God sends the fragrance of his ointments, drawing the soul onwards and after him.8 Eventually, though, these divine touches begin to heal and restore the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen, which, according to Augustine, is our whole business in this life. He writes: "For as there is an eye of the flesh, by means of which this light is seen, so there is an eye of the heart, by which that joy is perceived. Perhaps that eye is wounded, dimmed, disturbed by passion,...Believe, before thou seest: thou shalt be healed, and shalt see."9 And the healing of the eye of the heart is at the same time a restoration of the ability to hear, in particular the "tiny whispering sound" that Elijah was able to discern, that is, "the sound of Yahweh God" (Gn 3, 8). The ability to hear the sound of the Lord symbolizes an intimate and infused knowledge of God, an intimacy that belonged to the first parents in the state of original justice, but which was lost through sin; for when we know a person intimately, we know his sound, for example, the sound of his approach, and the speed and tone of his steps. It is as if the more Helen explores the world and comes to know it more intimately, the more she begins to see and hear. And, of course, reading her words, who would guess that she was unable to see and hear?

Lacking a committed prayer life is comparable to someone like Helen living so much within her own mind that she refuses to acquire language and explore the world outside of her. Imagine her sitting on the floor, staring at nothing, unresponsive to outside communication, never making a move to enter into any kind of communication with others within her reach. She'd have the appearance of a catatonic schizophrenic. And she'd have missed out on all the joy of growing in the knowledge of the beautiful world outside of her. Such is the life of the person who does not pray, at least from the point of view of heaven.

The blind and deaf insertion into this other world that is prayer is, like Helen's life, a source of great joy, one much more intense and refined, and of an entirely different nature than the kind of joy that the world offers. In fact, the joy of heaven that is eventually channeled through prayer fills this life with a fullness that it otherwise lacks, a fullness of life-giving water that becomes in us a spring, welling up for eternal life (Jn 4, 14) and awakening us to the mystery of the Word that illuminates our soul and fills us with hope and sets us free, as the water gushing over Helen's hand revealed to her the mystery of words, awakening her soul and setting it free. Just another example of "anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mt 10, 39); for we lose our life when we leave it behind and aspire towards God in prayer.

  

Endnotes:

  1. "In February, "came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a newborn baby….Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different, until she came — my teacher — who was to set my spirit free." Helen Keller. The Story of My Life. New York.: Bantam Books, 1990, pp. 4-5
  2. "…when we walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know little of the tender affections that grow out of endearing words and actions and companionship. But afterward, when I was restored to my human heritage, Mildred and I grew into each other's hearts,…" Ibid., p. 11
  3. Ibid., p. 5
  4. Ibid., p. 11
  5. "Light! Give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour. I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Some one too it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me. Ibid., p. 15
  6. Ibid., p. 16.
  7. Ibid., pp. 36-37.
  8. In the first place it should be known that if anyone is seeking God, the Beloved is seeking that person much more. And if a soul directs to God its loving desires, which are as fragrant to him as the pillar of smoke rising from the aromatic spices of myrrh and incense [Sg. 3:6], God sends it the fragrance of his ointments by which he draws it and makes it run after him [Sg. 1:3], and these are his divine inspirations and touches. As often as these inspirations and touches are his, they are always bound and regulated by the perfection of his law and of faith. It is by means of this perfection that a person must always draw closer to him. Thus it should be understood that the desire for himself that God grants in all his favors of unguents and fragrant anointings is a preparation for other more precious and delicate ointments, made more according to the quality of God, until the soul is so delicately and purely prepared that it merits union with him and substantial transformation in all its faculties. St. John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love. Stanza 3, 28. p. 684.
  9. En. in Ps., 97. "Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen. To this end are celebrated the Holy Mysteries; to this end the word of God is preached; to this end are the moral exhortations of the Church made, ...To this end is directed the whole aim of the Divine and Holy Scriptures, that that interior eye may be purged of anything which hinders us from the sight of God."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

McManaman, Douglas. "Walking in the Valley of Twofold Solitude." (July 2005).

Reprinted with permission of Douglas McManaman.

THE AUTHOR

Douglas McManaman is a high school religion teacher with the York Catholic District School Board in Ontario. He is currently teaching at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario and maintains a web site, A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page, in support of his students. He studied Philosophy at St. Jerome's College in Waterloo, and Theology at the University of Montreal. Mr. McManaman is the past President of the Canadian Chapter of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2005 Douglas McManaman



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