As a writer, I make connections. I observe, I reflect. My spiritual life is no exception. What is my relationship with Christ? How is God acting in my life? I look for meaning in just about everything; that’s who I am, who God made me to be. But I think that even in the midst of wanting to understand everything, I need to recognize that it is God who knows, not me. I’m not necessarily able to understand what He is doing in my life at this very minute—and maybe I don’t need to.

Not long ago I had a disconcerting experience in a spirituality class at seminary. We had each composed a short psalm of our own modeled after Psalm 100, and in small groups we were charged with sharing what we’d written, and then doing spontaneous prayer about the subjects brought up in our written prayers. The stated intention was to praise God through our individual and group activity.

It was awful. Right away I found myself wanting to distance myself from the activity. As soon as I read my “psalm” out loud, I saw how it was posturing and trite. As we went around the circle, with people breaking into prayer on this or that topic, I grew increasingly frustrated, even angry. I felt like the words were noise, just us showing off, parading pious-sounding words in front of each other. Other people in the group seemed to be genuinely moved, but I just felt more alienated. When was it going to be over? I looked at the clock. Five minutes left until the end of class, and a two-hour drive home ahead of me. “Can we be done now?” I asked, hearing the petulance in my own voice and hating it. One of my groupmates suggested that we move to discussion. I couldn’t even stay sitting in my chair. I felt something building up—frustration, anger?

Suddenly I just felt that I had to get out. I shoved my chair aside and bolted from the room. I slumped down in the corner of the hallway, and to my utter surprise, began to cry—wracking sobs, coming from somewhere inside that I had no idea about. I wept, my head in my hands, tears running down my cheeks, for what felt like an eternity but was probably a couple of minutes.

And then I wiped my face, got to my feet and made my way back into the classroom, where everyone was packing up at the end of class. I gathered my things, and assured the professor that I was all right.

I don’t know what happened.

I spoke briefly with one of my groupmates, telling him about how I had been frustrated with the activity, half apologizing for flaking out. He surprised me by saying that he was enormously relieved at my reaction—that most of the spiritual disciplines we’d discussed in class thus far this quarter had left him cold, and it had been making him feel inadequate, so it was a relief to him that someone else had found one of the activities frustrating and unfulfilling.

In a way, that seems like a neat tie-up for my experience. Overcome with frustration—leads to sharing frustration—leads to classmate being reassured and strengthened. Amen!

But it’s not that easy. Helping my classmate may have been an effect of the experience, but I’m sure that’s not all that was going on, or even the core of it.

When I was out there, in the hall, wracked with sobs coming out of who-knows-where in the depths of my heart—God was doing something, working something in me. And I don’t have any idea what. But at the same time I can’t dismiss it as a fleeting mood, or odd humor. Trust me, I am not the kind of person who tends to jump up and run out of the room, overcome with emotion. Especially not in the middle of class. Something happened. And I have no idea what.

We authors like to put down the complete stories, the ones that make sense. We save them, work on them, mull them over until all the pieces are in the right place. Even the stories about confusion usually fall into place: through confusion, I learned to put my trust in the Lord. Et cetera.

We need those words, I know. I know this because one of the ways that I make sense of what God is doing in my life is to write about it, and then to share what I’ve figured out.

But today, just today, I want to share something that is mysterious in its own small way. I am quite sure that God did something with me; no doubt there. I may eventually see what He was up to. Or maybe I won’t. He doesn’t have to explain Himself to me. Not all the things I want to know are things that I need to know. What was that experience all about? I don’t know. So here is my gift to you, reader, today: a reflection with a loose end.

If there is any truth in what I write, it is Christ’s alone.