posted
Henri asserted: We think: "If my family and friends knew the dark cravings of my heart and my strange mental wanderings, they would push me away and exclude me from their company." But the opposite is true. When we dare to lift our cup and let our friends know what is in it, they will be encouraged to lift their cups and share with us their own anxiously hidden secrets.
Terri rebutted: While it would be wonderful if this were always true, alas, it is often exactly as one fears.
I see your point, Terri. But might we say that at least something is pushed away if we don’t dare share the cravings of our hearts and strange mental wanderings with others? Don’t we perhaps push life away if we insist on living within the boundaries of what is non-threatening to those around us? I think one of the true arts in life is knowing when to say "To hell with what the rest of them think. This is what I think. And to hell with what everyone else is doing. This is what I’m going to do and I think it right and proper that I do so."
Oh, we all probably know only too well the price one often pays for being authentic. And that is surely one reason we find it so easy to stay in what is commonly referred to as our false selves.
That's not to say we shouldn't share ourselves but rather that when we do, we should be prepared to deal with the fact that there are some who will indeed push us away.
I agree. Perhaps that’s one reason I use the rubber suit analogy. We must at least be prepared to mentally wear one and not let the slings and arrows of fortune, outrageous or otherwise, unnecessarily buffet us and have undue influence over us. Again, perhaps that’s a rather naïve Nouwenesque ideal that becomes rather unworkable, or difficult to work, in the real world where compromising ourselves becomes easy, especially when we rationalize it as being good, as doing what it takes to "get along", etc. That’s a road to losing oneself as well.
What is important, imho, in this exercise or leap of faith, is knowing that whether one accepts us or not does not elevate or denigrate who we are.
I loved the way you’ve nuanced this subject, Terri, and I think you’re right-on again. And you seem to suggest that we need to be anchored to something more than just the opinions of others. I would agree. And at the same time, we live with people and it becomes important to us what others think, and rightfully so. Perhaps that’s what they say about choosing one’s friends carefully. It’s not that we need to surround ourselves with yes-men or yes-women, but it would surely do to surround ourselves with people around whom we didn’t have to walk on eggshells and could just be ourselves. And hopefully we return that to others as well. And if we’re really grown on this path, we’ll give that right to complete strangers as well. And then maybe we will have arrived.
Brad, I loved that excerpt about Bill's Life Story Book. That is a wonderful story.
Well, it truly brought a tear to my eye when I read it. But then I’m a sucker for such things.
Posts: 5365 | From: Washington State | Registered: Sep 2001
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Brad, you've touched on a multitude of subjects here...as usual ..which, of course, is one thing I love about these dialogues.
quote:But might we say that at least something is pushed away if we don’t dare share the cravings of our hearts and strange mental wanderings with others? Don’t we perhaps push life away if we insist on living within the boundaries of what is non-threatening to those around us?
You betcha. One of the most crippling things that can happen in life, again imho, is to keep all of ourselves so tightly locked away that we aren't even real to people around us. Yet, it is that very thing that happens often times after a series of rejections. It is extremely difficult to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and reach out again. To touch on your comments about the internet and message boards earlier, this is one venue which has been a catharsis for me personally, and I see it as a way in which I can extend myself. Imagine my surprise when I found that there were actually people who would read about what I think or even *gasp* see my opinion as valid? This is my stepping-out-of-the-boundary exercise .
quote: We must at least be prepared to mentally wear one and not let the slings and arrows of fortune, outrageous or otherwise, unnecessarily buffet us and have undue influence over us. Again, perhaps that’s a rather naïve Nouwenesque ideal that becomes rather unworkable, or difficult to work, in the real world where compromising ourselves becomes easy, especially when we rationalize it as being good, as doing what it takes to "get along", etc. That’s a road to losing oneself as well.
This is the tricky part isn't it? Rabbi David Wolpe (the guy who comments on a lot of the biblical stuff on the History channel, et al) made the statement once that the reason God gave us such diverse families was because it forced us, in a way, to learn to deal with/get along with/respect, etc. others. While at the same time, it forced us to learn who we were in the process and understand that we, too, are individual yet a member of the family. This experience helps us to deal with the outside world or work/school/church, etc. The trick is learning the difference between compromising ourselves and making compromises in a situation so that we can "get along," without the consequence of becoming merely a puppet of society or our surroundings.
quote:And you seem to suggest that we need to be anchored to something more than just the opinions of others. I would agree. And at the same time, we live with people and it becomes important to us what others think, and rightfully so. Perhaps that’s what they say about choosing one’s friends carefully. It’s not that we need to surround ourselves with yes-men or yes-women, but it would surely do to surround ourselves with people around whom we didn’t have to walk on eggshells and could just be ourselves.
Ideally, we compliment each other. Just as an illustration, I'll use my best friend, myself, and my husband. My best friend (of nearly 30 years) is such a free person. She's an artist, a bit wild, and isn't afraid to express herself in any situation. She's 60 years old now and has mellowed some with age, but you can imagine her at 30. I mean this woman climbed the lightpost (one of those 20-25 footers..lol) at the "Farewell to Texas Jam" in 1980 just to try to get a better look at the stage...LOL!! Mercy me. Compared to her, I'm practically stoic. BUT, when I'm with her, I can allow myself the freedom to tap into a certain part of myself that not just anyone gets to see. While compared to my husband, I'm the wild one. He always says he was born old..lol...and in some ways he's right. He's one of the most straight-as-an-arrow persons I know, and that is a good thing because it's what I need to balance out the "out there" part of me.
It seems to me that we are actually composites of many people. And when we are with certain people, we relate more through one part of who we are, while when we are with others, we relate more with a different part. The parts make a whole, and we will never be everything, all the time, with everyone. Or if we are supposed to be, I haven't figured out how to do it yet .
I think what I'm getting at, while rambling on, is that when our senses become keen enough to "read" people, we reach into that part of ourselves that will relate to them. Granted, there's going to be some we can't relate to on any level, but that doesn't mean we stop seeking a common ground. In this way, we continue to be who we are, allow others to be who they are, and understand that each human animal is a marvelous tapestry, ripe with colors and experiences we can enjoy, or even in some cases, see the danger in.
quote:And if we’re really grown on this path, we’ll give that right to complete strangers as well. And then maybe we will have arrived.
posted
This next story is from the same book by Henri Nouwen, Can You Drink the Cup. It prompted me to consider to what extent we're all wandering around blind, dead, and somewhat in a Dark Night. There's so much light and lightness at our fingertips at every moment. The question becomes, will we seize it? Can we seize it? Do we know how to seize it? And there's even an element in the story that touches on what Terri said that The trick is learning the difference between compromising ourselves and making compromises in a situation so that we can "get along,"…
quote:A few years ago, one of the handicapped members of the Daybreak community had to spend a few months in a mental hospital in Toronto for psychological evaluation. His name is Trevor. Trevor and I had become close friends over the years. He loved me and I loved him. Whenever he saw me coming, he ran up to me with a great radiant smile. Often he went into the fields and collected wildflowers for me…
During the time Trevor was away from Daybreak, I decided to go see him. I called the hospital chaplain and asked him if I could visit my friend. He said I was welcome to come and wondered if it would be all right if he invited some of the ministers and priests in the area and some members of the hospital staff to have lunch with me. Without thinking much about the implications of this request, I said immediately, "Sure, that will be fine."
When I arrived at 11:00 a.m., a large group of clergy and hospital personnel was waiting for me, and they welcomed me warmly. I looked around for Trevor, but he wasn't there. So I said: "I came here to visit Trevor. Can you tell me where I can find him?" The hospital chaplain said: "You can be with him after lunch." I was stunned and said, "But didn't you invite him for lunch?" "No, no," he said, "that's impossible. Staff and patients cannot have lunch together. Moreover, we have reserved the Golden Room for this occasion, and no patient has ever been allowed in that room. It is for staff only." "Well," I said, "I will only have lunch with you all when Trevor can be there too. Trevor and I are close friends. It is for him that I came, and I am sure he would love to join us for lunch." I noticed some mixed reactions to my words, but after some whispering I was told that I could bring Trevor with me to the Golden Room.
I found Trevor on the hospital grounds, as always, looking for flowers. When he saw me his face lit up, and he ran up to me as if we had never been apart and said, "Henri, here are some flowers for you." Together we went to the Golden Room. The table was beautifully set, and about twenty-five people had gathered around it. Trevor and I were the last to sit down…
People were making small talk. Many of the guests were strangers trying to get to know each other. The general atmosphere was quiet, somewhat solemn. I got quickly involved in a conversation with my right-hand neighbor and didn't pay much attention to Trevor. But suddenly Trevor stood up, took his glass of Coke, lifted it, and said with a loud voice and a big smile: "Ladies and gentlemen…a toast!" Everyone dropped their conversation and turned to Trevor with puzzled and somewhat anxious faces. I could read their thoughts: "What in the heck is this patient going to do? Better be careful."
But Trevor had no worries. He looked at everybody and said: "Lift up your glasses." Everyone obeyed. And then, as if it were the most obvious thing to do, he started to sing: "When you're happy and you know it…lift your glass. When you're happy and you know it…lift your glass. When you're happy and you know it, when you're happy and you know it, when you're happy and you know it…lift your glass." As he sang, people's faces relaxed and started to smile. Soon a few joined Trevor in his song, and not long after everyone was standing, singing loudly under Trevor's direction….With his unique blessing, Trevor had set the tone for a joyful and fruitful meeting. The cup of sorrow and joy had become the cup of blessings…
Many people feel cursed—cursed by God with illnesses, losses, handicaps, and misfortunes. They believe their cup doesn't carry any blessings…Trevor did what nobody else could have done. He transformed a group of strangers into a community of love by his simple, unself-conscious blessing. He, a meek man, became the living Christ among us.
Posts: 5365 | From: Washington State | Registered: Sep 2001
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Thanks so much for this theme. I'm a Nouwen follower -- hope that is not too strong a word. I saw him at Notre Dame where he shared the stage with a small group of disabled adults from Daybreak. At that time, I was working with disabled people, and doing so, in part to better understand Nouwen's message.
I have not read that story from Can You Drink This Cup, but reading it now, I have a "these are my kind of people" sentiment.
I'd like to commet on the line, "Many people feel cursed..." There was one time I'm thinking of when I not only felt cursed, I thought, "I'm cursed." It was such a repellant thought that I tried not to think it. I felt cursed because "I" was so very identified with my physical body, my mortal body that will decay. I knew I was identified with my mortal coil in that moment because, moments before I had felt the presence of Spirit with singular intensity. I wanted to serve the spiritual presence, wanted to be filled with the presence and then, the presence was gone.
I have reflected a lot on that "I'm cursed" moment. It resonates with John of the Cross when he talks about the wounded stag, the wound of love.
We don't know the pain of divine absence until we have sensed presence. Part of the pain of absence is feeling identified with other people who we wanted distance from, the ones we had judged. Divine absence clears the eye of judgment toward others and turns curse to one's self.
Mercifully, that "I'm cursed" moment was brief. A purgatory rather than a hell. Ahh the sheer grace. I hope that moment taught me something about incarnational compassion for all flesh.
To be honest, I'm searching for ways of articulating what that moment taught me then and is still teaching me now. I'm not alltogether clear about its meaning.
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It might be helpful at some point to re-visit the opening posts, which attempt to explain what Dark Nights mean in terms of the emergence of contemplative spirituality. That was how John of the Cross (who coined the term) explained Dark Nights. It's come to have other meanings -- like almost anyone going through depression or feeling God's absence tends to think they're in a Dark Night of the Soul. That's not necessarily true; sometimes negative experiences aren't in the service of spiritual emergence at all.
St. John was very specific in the signs indicating the emergence of the Dark Night, and the kinds of struggles one could expect to have during the process. First and foremost is that this applies to serious spiritual seekers, who have already experienced a time of closeness to God and who have been established in their faith. It is these who are being "weaned," as it were, of affective consolations to enable a deeper, contemplative awakening to emerge.
For those who haven't read his classical work, The Dark Night of the Soul, I'd highly recommend it, especially if you think you might be going through something like this in your life.
-------------------- "The Light shines on in darkness . . ." - John 1: 3 - Posts: 7539 | From: Wichita, KS | Registered: Aug 2001
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Thanks for your note. I've been reading this thread bottom up, and not very far up at that. I need to go now, but when I get some time, I want to read it top down.
Posts: 408 | From: Baltimore | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Phil: It might be helpful at some point to re-visit the opening posts, which attempt to explain what Dark Nights mean in terms of the emergence of contemplative spirituality. That was how John of the Cross (who coined the term) explained Dark Nights. It's come to have other meanings -- like almost anyone going through depression or feeling God's absence tends to think they're in a Dark Night of the Soul. That's not necessarily true; sometimes negative experiences aren't in the service of spiritual emergence at all.
Ack! Sorry about that Phil. I should've just directed my response back to page 1 and my posts there. I got carried away here. It's easy to do!
I always see creative wandering in threads as a virtue, although I’ll grant that I’ve taken many liberties with the concept of the Dark Night. But that’s what I call exploration. I think it’s good. Very good.
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The Stanzas of the Soul comes from the Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, translated and edited, with an Introduction, by E. Allison Peers. This translation has superseded all previous ones-Catholic Herald.
Stanzas of the Soul
1. On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings-oh, happy chance!- I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.
2. In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised-oh happy chance!- In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest.
3. In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.
4. This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday To the place where he (well I knew who) was awaiting me- A place where none appeared.
5. Oh, night that guided me, Oh night more lovely than the dawn, Oh night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!
6. Upon my flowery breast, Kept wholly for himself alone, There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him, And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
7. The breeze blew from the turret As I parted his locks; With his gentle hand he wounded my neck And caused all my senses to be suspended.
8. I remained lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved. All ceased and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares forgotten among the lillies.
Once you have gone through the Dark Night of the Soul, you know that you are home with God, the Beloved. You are in the world, but not of it.
I agree with what Phil states in his above definitions of this journey, but I also know that we are all God's beloved and that God can draw into this union with Him anyone, even someone who may be unaware of this journey in the yearnings and longing of the Soul's merger with God. The Lord our God does have secrets with the Soul which are unbeknown to us and the devil. This is a great mystery between the Lover God and the Beloved, Soul. Satan who is the robber of our Souls has no knowledge of these communications between God and His beloved the Soul.
Posts: 571 | From: Oregon | Registered: Jun 2005
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Before reading recent posts, I read the intro to this thread and all of page one == what a rich discussion!
What I'm finding interesting about St. John of the Cross is the way he goes back and forth between, on one hand, the sort of specific ecstatic moments expressed in that amazing poem, and on the other hand, patterns that persist over time in everyday life, as many have shared on this thread.
Posts: 408 | From: Baltimore | Registered: Apr 2005
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cut The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever - or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist."
That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta, and - except for a five-week break in 1959 - never abated. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture" she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. "The smile," she writes, is "a mask" or "a cloak that covers everything." Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. "I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God - tender, personal love," she remarks to an adviser. "If you were [there], you would have said, 'What hypocrisy.'" Says the Rev. James Martin, an editor at the Jesuit magazine America and the author of My Life with the Saints, a book that dealt with far briefer reports in 2003 of Teresa's doubts: "I've never read a saint's life where the saint has such an intense spiritual darkness. No one knew she was that tormented." Recalls Kolodiejchuk, Come Be My Light's editor: "I read one letter to the Sisters [of Teresa's Missionaries of Charity], and their mouths just dropped open. It will give a whole new dimension to the way people understand her." cut
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It's really difficult to know whether the experience Mother Teresa describes is of the Dark Night or something else. Certainly, the description of absence and emptiness sounds like D.N., and there's no doubting that faith and love were at work in her life. But how much can be attributed to other causes of a psychological nature is hard to say. E.g., a life so focused on service might have been starved for fun, play, close friendships, and other factors that help to bring a sense of energy and aliveness to the heart.
I'm sure there will be some who will read into these glimpses into Mother Teresa's inner life all sorts of cynical implications, but I'm not too surprised by it. She was, after all, human, and her relationship with God was based on faith, just as ours. Faith without doubt is suspect, imo, and faith without dryiness and emptiness hasn't really been tested. We evaluate a life based on its fruits, and hers was rich in that respect beyond measure.
-------------------- "The Light shines on in darkness . . ." - John 1: 3 - Posts: 7539 | From: Wichita, KS | Registered: Aug 2001
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Phil, is there any way of knowing if Mother Thersa was encouraged to live a more balance life. From a little more i have read it didn't sound like it. It almost sounded like she was being told that this darkness was a good thing that was happening to her.
Posts: 135 | Registered: Aug 2006
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August 27 (last Monday) was the birthday of Mother Teresa. Remembering her on The Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor wrote: "...born in the city of Skopje, Macedonia (1910). Her father was murdered when she was seven years old, and her family fell into poverty. She was educated by Irish missionary nuns, and she decided to follow in their footsteps. She went to Dublin to train for missionary work when she was 18, and for her first missionary assignment she was sent to Calcutta, India. She taught high school for several years and worked her way up to school principal. Then, one day, she found a woman dying in the street and sat with the woman, stroking her head until she died. That experience inspired her to found a new religious order, called the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, devoted to anyone "unwanted, unloved, and uncared for." When she began her project, Mother Teresa's Order of the Missionaries of Charity members included a dozen nuns. By the time she died, the order consisted of more than 5,000 nuns and brothers, operating more than 2,500 orphanages, schools, clinics, and hospices in 120 countries, including the United States."
quote:Originally posted by Ajoy: It almost sounded like she was being told that this darkness was a good thing that was happening to her. [/QB]
Yes, Ajoy, based on the article you shared, I see what you mean. She was told that there was no human remedy for her sense of divine absence and inner darkness. And even told that her darkness was a gift. Maybe she was also advised to take a vacation and get more rest or something like that too, the article does not say.
Sorry about the length of the following quotation from the article, but I found the whole thing quite telling:
"The Rev. Joseph Neuner, whom she met in the late 1950s and confided in somewhat later, was already a well-known theologian, and when she turned to him with her 'darkness,' he seems to have told her the three things she needed to hear: that there was no human remedy for it (that is, she should not feel responsible for affecting it); that feeling Jesus is not the only proof of his being there, and her very craving for God was a 'sure sign' of his 'hidden presence' in her life; and that the absence was in fact part of the 'spiritual side' of her work for Jesus.
This counsel clearly granted Teresa a tremendous sense of release. For all that she had expected and even craved to share in Christ's Passion, she had not anticipated that she might recapitulate the particular moment on the Cross when he asks, 'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?' The idea that rather than a nihilistic vacuum, his felt absence might be the ordeal she had prayed for, that her perseverance in its face might echo his faith unto death on the Cross, that it might indeed be a grace, enhancing the efficacy of her calling, made sense of her pain. Neuner would later write, 'It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus' passion.' And she thanked Neuner profusely: 'I can't express in words - the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me - for the first time in ... years - I have come to love the darkness.'"
I'm reminded of Jesus' words that have come to be my companion of late. Words as told by Matthew, "...if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness." And in Lukes, variation: "There fore be careful lest the light in you be darkness."
These words seem to go against such a positive interpretation of inner darkness. I'm still in process on it's meaning.
Thank you for the article you shared about Mother Theresa. I had not known about her early child hood. The article that i shared earlier has now been altered and it looks expanded.
Also if you go to the Time (i believe) article on the same page it gives the full 6 page article. I'm finding i need some time to be with what is being said in this article. As i glanced through it, it does sound like she was forced to take at least some vacations as she was working herself to death according to the full article.
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mateusz
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Hi, the thread's been inactive for 2 years, but I'd like to share with you two poems I wrote during the gravest dark night I experienced at the end of 2006. There are things Zen and Christian mixed in it, so I find it interesting from the time perspective. I forgot the intensity of pain and I can read it with a distance:
"Shine of dazzling brightness"
Oh, Light, You are a destruction of everything, You are death of “me” and “mine”. Killing me, you take me into ineffable and mysterious infinity, Where I cannot find myself anymore. I don’t exist and I’ve never existed in the way I thought I have. But there’s absolute poverty and kenosis, Nakedness and vanity of all. In this night and deathly shine Love became Non-Love.
Faith: only this. But what I thought to be faith Is merely a play of light on snow, While true faith is emptiness and darkness, In which my intellect and consciousness are immersed, killed, annihilated. Only from it a true trust and conviction can flow, They are like a mist, but only they can testify to the existence of faith. Does dream and mist can testify about Truth?
This death is wonderful, light and relentless, Everything is dancing within it, devoid of its substantiality, Experiences are just experiences, phenomena are just phenomena, Light is real, but ungraspable, it shines through all. It is the bottomless Ground of Being, boundless Being above Being. But in this shine, taking reason away from me, How can I humanely love, trust, pray...? Everything was taken from me, my “me” was taken from me, And there’s nothing anymore, and everything is just as it is... Absolute freedom of Existence, but a pain of an existing one... It is a terminal struggle...
"Why have you forsaken me?"
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But why in the bliss of liberation, in the truth as obvious as a hit in a face? Why in a light so transparent, so bright? Why in this lightness, this radiance? Why can’t you be grasped, related to? Why there’s no-one who could despair about it?
Oh Truth, be God to me! God, be Existence to me! Oh Nothingness, be Love! because there’s no way outside, nor inside, there's no entrance, no gate... I had so much love, I had so much desire, and suddenly I’m in a midst of a boundless desert, Bathed in a shine which has stolen my Beloved from me, And made my soul, once so real, only an unreal shadow... Faithfulness... Promises... Trust... Hope... Let them be manifest in this dream-world And give a meaning to this dream-shadow I’ve become!
My Beloved, if He is Reality, if He is the All, Why has he disappeared, taking away everything that was important? Important to whom? And why? From a complete emptiness I bring my prayers to the Unknowable Nothingness. Her will be done, not mine, and be I a decent man, Whatever will happen.
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Those poems are amazing! Did it ever get better? I'm surely not looking forward to that part of my spiritual voyage.
Posts: 3 | From: toronto | Registered: Oct 2008
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mateusz
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Hi, Buttercup.
It did get better. The horrible part of the experience lasted about a month or two, than I started to adjust to it. After few months I could relate to God once more, and the subtle sense of sense came back. But until this December for two years I've been in a relatively dry period. Now the feeling of His presence came back, stronger than ever. As you can see, in these poems, there are Zen things mixed with Christian contemplative things, and I, myself, couldn't tell them apart until now. E.g. I wouldn't say now that phenomena are "illusory" - I think it's a Buddhist interpretation. Teresa of Avila wrote at the end of her autobiography that she sees everything AS IF in a dream. That's more Christian than "illusory" or "non-existing". And in these poems I see an attempt to get to God through by-passing concepts, feelings, forms and so on, which is not traditionally Christian. Maybe God wanted to show me that God without concepts and feelings is not really the God I want to know, because there can be no relationship when you are in this Light-Existence. The Christian part was feelings of being abandoned, cheated, rejected, lonely and a great pain of loss.
thank you for your post:) W.C. on this forum thinks that if you had a really good childhood experience you don't have to be afraid of dark nights. Anyway, this experience was very enriching for me, a lot of spiritual pride diminished through this.
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Those truly are wonderful poems, mateusz! One certainly does get a sense of your experience and struggle in reading them. Your reflection above on how you see them now is also interesting. It seems that, for awhile, you were given to suffer a Christian-Zen dark night, but that you are now coming to experience a fruitful emergence from it.
-------------------- "The Light shines on in darkness . . ." - John 1: 3 - Posts: 7539 | From: Wichita, KS | Registered: Aug 2001
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mateusz
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posted
Thanks, Phil. I feel I have much more clarity now in my intellect about spiritual life. I thank you, and James Arraj and all the participants of the forum (BR thread especially) for helping me to sort these things out. Your experiences and your feedback had been a real assistance in my transition. I feel I made my own decision about giving up Zen and I think this was God's will for me, but the exchanges on the forum and via email helped me a lot in clarifying stuff. Now I feel I'm truly home. Probably, other difficult experiences will come on my way, but the sense of belonging and being-at-the-right-place in spiritual life gives me hope. I take the present abundance of graces as a sort of God's way to tell me I'm on the right path and "keep going, son!" I also see that those two years've been a test for my faith - which was confronted with emptiness and survived, mysteriously enough. I see it as a grace that I didn't lose my faith in God-Jesus-Church through this, but also I recognize that I had a choice and I choose to believe, hence my feeling of "having being tested" by God, in a positive and loving way, kind of... . I've also shared recently my experience with my friends who were astonished by my decision to leave Zen for traditional Christian practice. I see that my sharing had an impact, and I'm beginning to think that maybe God wants to use me and my intellectual and verbal skills to explain to others some aspects and issues of Christian spirituality. So I try to learn as much as possible from Phil and other persons on the forum, who have so much more clarity and experience than I do, and there's a lot to learn here. I'm getting personal, but the possibility of this kind of vocation is also a way for me to make sense out of everything that God's given me and gives those days, because, really, I can't get rid of a feeling of being merely an impure and broken vessel for things precious beyond imagination. But only He can make us worthy of receiving His gifts and His GIFT.
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quote:Originally posted by mateusz: ... Now I feel I'm truly home. ... I also see that those two years've been a test for my faith - which was confronted with emptiness and survived, mysteriously enough. I see it as a grace that I didn't lose my faith in God-Jesus-Church through this, but also I recognize that I had a choice and I choose to believe, hence my feeling of "having being tested" by God, in a positive and loving way, kind of... ;) . ... and I'm beginning to think that maybe God wants to use me and my intellectual and verbal skills to explain to others some aspects and issues of Christian spirituality. ...
It has been a wonderful pleasure to have you share so much of your extraordinary journey. I can see how immensely gratifying and illuminating it has been for you to receive God's gifts/teachings since December. I hope you remain open to God's call to teach...your experiences will be used to bring Him Glory. :)
Posts: 352 | Registered: Dec 2005
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w.c.
unregistered
posted
mateusz:
It has been a pleasure interacting with you, as Shasha says. You come across with real compassion in your posts, even when they're loaded with philosophical reflection (which I enjoy). Having this small group share in these ways would only be better were it an in-person group.
As for my comment about relatively secure parent-child attachment yielding a less severe Dark Night of Sense and Spirit, treat that as only my opinion. Phil would know, through years of spiritual direction, how much it holds up in general. As you say, much of our spiritual pride is uknown to us, and so we can't resolve it through any of the subtlest efforts. In that sense aridity would be God's means of accomplishing in us what we'd only thwart if we could.
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mateusz
unregistered
posted
Phil, Shasha, W.C. and others:
thank you for your kind and supportive words. shalomplace is really a space when I see extraordinarily intelligent, open, kind and faithful people sharing and discussing. This is really great and what a contemplative community needs these days. It's been and is a privilege to blog here.
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