We do not arrive at our true vocation, to reflect something true and lasting back into life, without some darkness that awakens us more deeply. Something of the ego or false self must go for true self, the self that reflects God’s love back into life, to begin its next phase of arrival. The dark night does not come only once but will in some way repeat as we grow in awareness and depth.
Not a lot is said about the dark night in casual writings about spiritual growth and awakening. There is a tendency to instruct us to stay attached to the light, to work at happiness; to forgive and seek forgiveness as if we are in this realm where all is sure. Yet the dark night is real and essential to our growth. It is that time when the false props fall away and we are in some way naked to self and God who eludes us for a time.
In the dark night one feels totally alone, stuck in the dark. The hope of seeing the light again is gone. This time often follows real spiritual growth or some early sighting of our potential for growth. Yet it feels as if we must have done something terribly wrong to be here, in this land where we cannot see our way or God as our guide. What waits for us here?
One writer has noted that this is a time of spiritual detox. The pain we feel may be the pain we have tried to suppress for years or decades. Now it is coming to the surface.
I experienced it as overwhelming first by its dullness. I called it my world of cotton where I could feel nothing. Then it became a world of anger and pain. Where did all this come from? It came from that deep place I felt God could not go with me. It was a place of denial of life for me. In time, by honest journey, with some companioning, the darkness and pain become the way of enlightenment and new growth. Yet in the beginning it is frightening nothingness. It is as if one is either falling deep into aloneness or stuck on the surface of nothingness. For me it was accompanied by such shame. How did I get here after seeking to be so attentive to God and good?
Perhaps David is in an early chapter of his dark night of the soul or one of his early encounters with this experience of aloneness. So much has gone well for him and so much of it based on his ego, his sense of self as his own. He has been entrusted with family responsibility. He has slain a giant of a man with a stone. He has been a healing source for Saul’s mind with his music. He felt he had been a faithful servant even as he was more praised than his superior. Jonathan, the next in line to reign has chosen David as most dear friend or more. He is deeply loyal to David’s soul. One can see that so much must feel a blessing from God who has already set him apart by Samuel’s anointing to be the future king. Can’t you just see the growth of ego, of false self in the midst of true self? It happens to us all.
And then it is over, progressively. Now he must beg or lie for bread. Perhaps God seems his only companion or none at all. He today lies to a holy man and then to his intimate enemy he passes as mad. Does he feel sly or does he feel alone or does he feel both? While he clings to survival, where is he with God? In the quiet stretches of aloneness, when the scheming is at rest does he let the dark night speak? Does he watch his false self give way as he hungers for the Holy Other to support and guide and receive his wasted efforts of building the self only to find it hollow and of no deep guide? If so he has entered the dark night.
Here we awake from time to time. If we wait, even hopelessly wait, yet stay alert, we will awake to a truer self. From this place we will learn the strange art of love that comes from our depth. We awaken to God who is deeper than our notion of God before. When next we are found by the Dark Night we will trust perhaps that it is a place of deep birth even as it feels a place of our depression and dying.
No comments:
Post a Comment