The Flame That Holds Its Ground

In the monastery chapel at three in the morning, a single candle burns. The wind pushes through cracks in the old stone walls, and the flame bends, shudders, almost surrenders. But it does not go out. It leans into the dark and keeps burning.

This is the courage Joshua 1:9 speaks of — not the courage of armies marching forward, but the courage of remaining present when everything in you wants to flee. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

Thomas Merton understood this. He wrote that the deepest courage is not found in action but in the willingness to sit with God in the raw silence where all our pretenses are stripped away. Centering prayer asks this of us daily — to descend past the noise of our anxious thoughts, past the false self that performs bravery, into the still center where the Living God actually dwells.

Teresa of Avila called the interior castle a place of many rooms, and some of those rooms are terrifying. The courage of the contemplative is to keep walking inward when the hallway goes dark, trusting that El Shaddai is not absent in the darkness but is, in fact, the darkness's own ground.

You do not need to shout your way into bravery. Sit. Breathe. Stay with the Presence. The flame that holds its ground in the wind is braver than the bonfire that has never been tested.