In secret

Like Wiebe, a few years ago I stood open-mouthed in front of the tiny late-medieval prayer nuts in the Rijksmuseum. What unimaginable craftsmanship! What dedication and concentration! I still regularly leaf through the exhibition catalogue to marvel at these extremely delicate little works of art. But perhaps I was moved even more in Amsterdam when I tried to imagine how these small prayer nuts were once used by people like you and me. People with longings, with questions, in joy or in great need. People who, just as in that centuries-old book, asked how they, as small souls, could pray to high heaven (Luke 11:1).

Wiebe’s prayer nut came into my life in a rather special way, to say the least. One day, about a year and a half ago now, I happened to be giving a talk in Zutphen, and Wiebe was in the audience. Afterwards he came to introduce himself and, without further ado, gave me a prayer nut, for the simple reason that he knew I could use one. Of course he could not have known that I had seen that exhibition in the Rijksmuseum. What he also could not have known, humanly speaking, was that on that very day I had just reached a low point in my life. Sometimes you cannot see for yourself what you need, especially not when it is dark. But God sees in secret.

And with that, the prayer nut, which now has a permanent place in my home and is a faithful companion on long journeys, touches for me on the heart of prayer. The nut, with its two empty surfaces on the inside, reminds me very tangibly of the Bible passage in which Jesus himself teaches us to pray: go into your room, close the door and pray (Matt. 6:6). We are sometimes inclined to associate prayer with words, and especially with many or beautiful words. But we do not need to make it complicated or grand. In the Dutch Willibrord translation of the Bible, Jesus uses the word ‘inner room’ as the place for prayer. A secluded place that offers room only for the encounter between God and our deepest longings. God sees in secret. And that is why we may pray in secret. And sometimes we need someone else, an artist for instance, to show us the way to our inner room.

Very little fits into my small prayer nut. No frills, no ornament, no grand display. That is exactly why the nut makes room for my inner room and for the encounter that may take place there. I only need to write a single word before closing the nut again. Sometimes it is a question, sometimes a name, sometimes a word of thanks. Sometimes I don’t even know myself what I mean. God sees it. And he will answer, in secret.

December 2021