I would like to share a personal story. I was in the fourth year of a six-year term as Director of Formation for our Carmelite seminarians in Washington, DC. In my head, it was very clear that this was a truly important work. Yet, I had a deep sense of ambivalence within me. There was a disconnect between my feelings and head. I began to define the problem as a desire to work with the poor as I had for the previous twenty-five years in my native Chicago. Finally, it got bad enough that I shared it with a trusted mentor. He gave me some very simple advice. Go to prayer and just be quiet. It was a time to simply listen in silence. After some time, I truly do not recall if it was a week or a month, an answer came. It was clear and surprising. I needed to mourn and let go of Chicago. I gradually freed my heart of this hidden clinging to the past and put my nickel down in my present commitment in DC. It took some time but I did it. I felt free and comfortable at last. Then the God of surprises came visiting some weeks later. My provincial asked me to go to a poor parish in South Central LA. Had I not let go of my hidden clinging to Chicago, I would have come up with numerous reasons why I could not possibly go to LA. In fact, I was now free and it was one of the great blessings in my life where I spent the next twenty years.
Light in the Darkness
The grace is in the struggle. Life is never complete. It is always messy. It is the nature of things that all relationships are incomplete. There is a built-in change factor. We cannot stop the clock. The kids grow up quickly, and even more rapidly, middle age passes on to the twilight years.
John of the Cross has good counsel for these inevitable crises of life. He says that God’s love is hidden in the turmoil and one is not able to see or experience this love at the beginning of a particular problem. My story of letting go of Chicago is a clear example of this. John’s response is simple: patience, trust and perseverance in the apparent darkness of the crisis that is truly light. Things are happening during the unrest. The idols are being exposed and released from the clinging heart. This is the work of the Dark Night.
The gods are dying in the night and the soul needs to let go. It needs to grieve the loss. The wrong path would be to artificially solve or heal the condition, or deny it altogether. John encourages us to face the turbulence. We need patience where the heart is struggling in the midst of the troubles. Our most real option is to be on the alert for the approach of love. This is exactly what my spiritual guide had me do in my little crisis. John calls for a “loving attentiveness” in the dark. It is time to watch in the night. Contemplation is this experience of God’s transforming love, especially when it comes in such a disguised manner. Only when we pass through the purification that is so necessary for us, are we gradually able to see the beauty. God is hidden in the darkness.
New Treasures in the Debris of Life
The Carmelite spiritual tradition helps us look beyond the surface of the many levels of brokenness and failure in our life. With eyes energized by the spirit, the gospel contradictions now become a source of liberation. There is gold in the wreckage of life’s troubles. The awe-inspiring symbol of the Crucified Christ opens the pathway to God in our suffering and loss. God’s love is always present even in life’s darkest moments, the time of our deepest trials.
We are creatures, and as such, we are limited. However, our ultimate destiny is the infinite. We are summoned beyond our little dreams to a God of unlimited and unconditional love. We have incredible energy and creativity to deny that we are sinners. The deeper and much more beautiful reality takes place when we accept ourselves as sinful. Then we can also relish the fact that we are loved and forgiven and saved in our sinful condition. This outlook is necessary to open our deeper journey in the Dark Night.
God’s mercy is always on the prowl, always seeking us. A mystic of the Middle Ages, Julian of Norwich, put it beautifully when she said, “First comes the fall and then the recovery from the fall. Both are the mercy of God.”
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