6. The Dark Night of the Soul- Through and Beyond

Many of us might be saying as we move through these dark night times:

• This is impossible.
• I can’t do anything about what’s happening yet it keeps me awake at night.
• How can I have a good dialogue with others?
• I don’t have the energy to do what can be done.
• I can’t find a reason to hope somedays.

This does look and feel that way. A local church has had a statement on its outside sign for over a month now…

Hope in an apocalyptic world.

Says it all. Everything is falling apart. The end is near.

And yet, an apocalypse, in Christian tradition, is not just a cataclysmic destruction- it is a prophetic revelation of what God is going to be doing. And that brings us back to the Dark Night of the Soul and the journey with God.

Here are the ultimate questions, for me at least, in this series of the Dark Night:

How then does one live after the Dark Night? What is the result of this journey when we get through it?

John Drury in an essay titled The Spiritual Theology of St. John  of the Cross says:

The dark night of sense not only overcomes evil but also infuses good into the soul.  It gives knowledge of self and one’s misery.  This makes it possible for the proficient to have courteous communication with God.  The gift of knowledge extends beyond oneself to God’s grandeur and majesty.  Knowledge of human lowliness and divine greatness produces genuine spiritual humility, from which stems love of neighbor. 
The fruits of this journey are humility, knowledge, virtue, and love for God and others. -Link 

Beyond that, John of the Cross doesn’t give us much of an answer. One of the more common criticisms of him is that he doesn’t deal with the every day life of a person who has experienced the union with God. Part of the reason for that is simply that such a union does not fully occur in this life. The contemplative life, one built in prayer and meditation is powerful and may even feel good. But if it doesn’t have an impact on how we live and what we do in this life, does that mean, then, that the life after the dark night is one of simply waiting around to get to heaven?

I don’t think so. One of the reasons I don’t believe that is true is simply from my experience and the experience of others in dark night situations. I return to the spiritual journey and tools that have led me and many others- the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and their basic text, often referred to as the “Big Book.” In chapter 5, “How It Works”, the paragraph following the listing of the Twelve Steps says:

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

How then do we maintain the spiritual journey once the dark night has shown us our powerlessness and our need for a “higher power”? After we have cleansed our souls, made it right with others, and taken responsibility for our own actions, then what? When we recognize our own imperfection and perhaps even knowing or unknowing participation in the darkness, what can we do?

Step 11 says that we continually seek awareness of our higher power’s will- and ask for the power to do it. We do this through regular practices of prayer and meditation. There are some principles behind that, of course.

Honesty
Open-mindedness
Willingness

With these come humility and acceptance of life on life’s terms.

In order to do that there are some practices that we can develop.
Dr. Amit Sood of the Mayo Clinic who was one of my mentors a few years ago, says that we need to develop spiritual practices that help keep our lives as stress free as possible. The more stress, the more likely we are to veer away from the better ways of the spiritual life. It always starts with working on ourselves- the only person we can truly change. On his blog, Dr. Sood lists some practices that help in our daily self-inventory and discovery of acceptance.

Pick one of the practices noted below for today, or create one of your own.
    •    Today, I will consider that most people around me have good intentions.
    •    Today, I will try to gain a complete perspective before making any conclusions.
    •    Today, I will try my best to look at well-meaning intent in a previous situation where I got hurt.
    •    Today, I will keep good intentions all day long.
    •    Today, I will forgive myself for a previous unhealthy thought.
    •    Other: (create your own)

Another idea from Dr. Sood is to get in the habit of picking a “theme” for each day. Start the day with an awareness of the theme and then look for ways to live that throughout the day. He lists the following:

Monday- Gratitude
Tuesday- Compassion
Wednesday- Acceptance
Thursday- Higher Meaning
Friday- Forgiveness
Saturday- Celebration
Sunday- Reflection

This kind of discipline can help keep us grounded in our spiritual lives. It can remind us on a daily basis that we can make a difference by how we live and treat others. What the Dark Night leads spiritual people to is a position of witness. Perhaps at times these witnesses are in the form of being the source of repentance for ourselves and our nations.

I come now to some of the ways we can apply these to our current situation- the one that triggered this dark night in the first place. Many are still struggling with the election and its real life consequences on many people. What is interesting to me is that many of those who are feeling this way are doing so out of a real concern for others.

• We see issues of racism and intolerance- dangerous and toxic ideas that seriously undermine who we are as a nation. 
• We see issues of people possibly losing health care or much needed Medicare or Social Security benefits. For a nation that says it cares, this is a disaster. 
• We see the wealthy 2% getting breaks while the potential for fewer benefits for those who can least afford it is real. For a people who claim democracy and equality, this is a witness against us. 
• We see refugees and immigrants lumped into religious-based prejudice from people who can’t tell the difference between Muslims, Sikhs, or Hindus. 
• The press is being unmercifully attacked as an enemy, voter suppression is a real possibility- and this from those who claim to uphold the Constitution.

No wonder many are confused and scared.So let me start by calling us to our own living out of compassion. We need to be cautious that we do not succumb to hateful or mean reactions. We need to maintain our own integrity. We need to be able to listen to what the other side is saying. If we are truly all Americans, we need to find ways to work together. In so doing we also need to find ways to counter the prevailing “party line” of Mr. Trump, Mr. Bannon, and their associates.

Unfortunately we are in an uphill battle. You may have discovered, as I have, that logic does not tend to win any arguments in this or similar situations. No matter what the issue, no matter what side we are on, we all tend to follow our own biases. If it confirms our point of view, we believe it, even when it is downright impossible to believe. The NRA used the “Obama is going to take away your guns” meme so powerfully that many believed it- because they believed it. We will also see in Mr. Trump the confirmation of our fears. When we do so, we need to be careful we do not fall into the same hysteria that we have seen from others. This has been difficult and I am failing at it regularly. But I keep trying.

Underneath this we need to maintain non-violence. The lives of Dr. King and Gandhi are beacons to us. Believe it or not, there are actually studies (admittedly cautionary) that seem to show that non-violent resistance has been more successful at bringing about hopeful change than violence in many places in the world. We must not allow violence to take center stage. We must find ways to maintain the peaceful way even when others- often a very small minority- get the headlines for violent behavior.

In the research and reading for this series, I came across this quote from Shane Claiborne in the book Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals:

Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.

I also live with the question, “What if things do continue to get worse? What if the actions of the administration continue to undermine democratic activity, increase racism and intolerance, and even lead to violent confrontations? What if even a small part of the worst of our fears comes true?

We must maintain our stand. We must stay informed. And I don’t mean by watching either left- or right-wing media. Take the time to follow a variety of reputable news sources that probably lean either one way or the other. New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, National Review and The Guardian can give a wide view point. You don’t have to agree with all that they say, but most of the time they do tend to be a little more balanced than (in my opinion) any of the TV news outlets of any stripe.

After that, there are three things that those who have had some experience of union with a Higher Power through a dark night journey can and should do.

•     Protect your soul and spirit.
• Maintain your own spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, yoga or Tai Chi, worship, communion.
• Don't let the negativity, hatred, or anger subvert your growing awareness of your spiritual life .
• Find ways to put your feelings into healthy words so others may be better able to understand why you feel the way you do.
•     Help others protect their soul and spirit.
• Be a good listener to people on all sides of the issues.
• Listen to the cries of all who feel least and lost on both sides, remembering that perception is felt as reality
• Don't attack others in vengeful ways but hear the pain and fear that has led them to their position.
• Know that we are all in this together and that we all have our biases that can get in the way.
• Be as forgiving of them as you would want others to be to you. You are the one who can change your reaction.
•     Bear witness
• Some are calling this a time of resistance. Resistance is a way of bearing non-violent witness. 
• Be cautious and loving in your witness. Just the very act of resistance can feel like a provocation to those being challenged. Maintain the peace! 
• Speak up for the least and the lost, the stranger and the hungry, the sick and lonely. Those of us who are in some space of privilege need to find healthy ways to use that privileged place to improve the world.

In doing this wrestling over the past months has reminded me that the spiritual life and union with our Higher Power is for this life! It is NOT a pie in the sky for someday we will be in heaven kind of message. The dark night occurs because we have experienced a significant spiritual and cognitive dissonance. This is not who we are nor is it who we want to be seen. What can this mean?

It means contemplation AND action. It means affirming life and peace. It means resistance with compassion.

This of course is but a small step. We can only think and act locally in our own lives. Over this time I have felt drawn to the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer many times. I am going to do a series for Lent here on the blog called Interrupted by God, a phrase taken from one of his quotes. Yes, there are certain issues with Bonhoeffer and I hope to dig through those.

I will start this tomorrow- Ash Wednesday and continue every Sunday of Lent and through all of Holy Week. I have picked a quote for each day and I hope to be able to read more on Bonhoeffer through Lent.

I invite you to join with me on this and continue our individual journeys to our ongoing spiritual awakening and practicing these spiritual principles in all we do.

Blessings and grace!

An Interlude- Dark Night Reactions and Actions

Time for another interlude post in the Dark Night of the Soul.  It has gotten darker for me.

We were sitting in a diner the other evening, the evening the circuit court upheld the stay in the immigration ban. Fox News was on the TV and, while the sound was off, the trailer and closed-captions weren’t. You could see in the faces where some of the news people were going. At the same time the trailer was telling of an Iranian official calling it the “blessed ban” because it proves that the United States hates Muslims.

“The judiciary will save us,” my wife said. The separation of powers that is a basic of our governmental life will hold Trump accountable.

“Unless there is a terror attack by someone from one of these countries before it is resolved,” was my pessimistic response. “Then it will all be the fault of these, as Trump calls them, ‘so-called’ judges.”

“Yes,” was all she could say.

I put my forehead in my hands and wondered if I could give up news for Lent this year?

I am tired. Sick and tired. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. This just can’t be happening.

Corinna Barrett Lain, a professor at University of Richmond School of Law, had an opinion column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch last Monday. It started this way:

Let me guess — you are physically and emotionally exhausted. You aren’t sleeping well. You find it difficult to concentrate.

And you are stressed by a torrent of events: attacks on the press, the appointment of a man associated with neo-Nazis as chief strategist to the president (and now as a member of the National Security Council), the endorsement of torture, a ban on all refugees and citizens of select majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States, the firing of the acting attorney general who refused to defend the ban, a Holocaust remembrance statement that omitted any reference to Jews, fights with our neighbors and closest allies, and most recently, denigration of a federal judge.

So. Many. Things. It’s enough to suck the lifeblood out of us — and that may be the point. (Link)

These are what have been called “shock events.” They are things that happen too fast for us to process them and cause us to become worn down. We can’t keep up with the seemingly endless series of “shock events” that make us forget the one that came before. It feels like being buried alive.

There are two types of “shock events” and both cause disruption and change. The first is the event that comes out of  nowhere, the “black swans” of history. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are two examples. They cause things to happen because they are so raw and unexpected. Wise (or cunning) politicians can use these type of shock events to get change to happen- quickly. The Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, whether actual or turned into more than it was, could be seen as one as well. This is where my concern about the next potential terrorist attack comes from. Under current settings, such an event could easily turn into a need to set up some form of martial law, extreme police measures or the like in order to protect national security. Fingers will be pointed- at Democrats, at liberals, at judges, at Muslims. It could be very devastating to American democracy.

Which leads to the other type of “shock events.” These are purposely done in order to keep people off-balance. That exhaustion Professor Lain spoke of comes easily from a string of events, any one of which is unsettling, which when taken together become overwhelming. Like a dark night without end.

I had been doing well until this week, until now when it all piled up again. Last week in the post on the Dark Night I talked about the series of conversations I was having with a supporter of Mr. Trump and his policies. I felt positive about the way we had both handled it.

We both were open to trying to move from stereotypes and talking points to at least a little more substance. For example:

Trump Supporter: Democrats didn’t win. They are mad that a Republican is in office.
Me: No. Much of what is happening is not because a Republican won. Many feel Trump is not qualified to be president. It’s not that Democrats lost- it is the nature of the person who won! We are afraid of what he says he will do- and what he is doing. This would not be happening this way if any other GOP candidate had won, except maybe Ted Cruz.
TS: A nod of agreement about Cruz and then of some type of understanding.

 Another discussion:

TS: What about these liberals sitting down in the middle of highways. They deserve to get run over. What they are doing is against the law.
Me: (Admittedly a little sarcastically) Yes, but so was dumping tea in Boston Harbor illegal.
TS: That’s different.
Me: No it’s not. By definition civil disobedience is illegal. If you do it you have to be willing to go to jail.
TS: Ok.
Me: But running the protestors over with a car is also illegal. (He had thought that was what the drivers should do.)

We spent time reviewing what for me is Civics 1- the separation of powers- co-equal branches of government. He didn’t know what I was talking about.

TS: The constitution gives the president the right to protect national security.
Me: Yes, but not if what he is doing is either illegal or unconstitutional.
TS: But the president is the one who decides that. Not the courts.
Me: But the courts decide if what is done is illegal or unconstitutional. That's the way our system works. We have three equal parts of the government. The president is not free to do whatever he wants. He can be challenged in court.
TS: That way the president can’t become a dictator. OK. (It was a statement, not a question!)

I was always honest about my own personal opinions of Mr. Trump and what he has been doing. I didn’t go into all the sordid details as a way of pounding my listener. I was not out to overwhelm him, I was out to listen to him and respond in helpful ways, not pushing him away. We were not debating. We were discussing the issues in real time and with honesty.

I expressed my concerns about Trump- and he responded with his. He said that what he wants most is for Obamacare to be fixed (not repealed!), that we as a country are safe, and that we regain some of our jobs that have been lost to other countries. We did not go into depth on the jobs issue, having had other events come up that sidetracked us.

I saw this as a good paradigm for what I could possibly do in my own one-on-one conversations with other Trump supporters. Unfortunately I don’t know many of those. Of the few I do know, only one couple has been open to these conversations before this. But maybe that’s good enough for now.

But as all that has gone on, we are still only three weeks, repeat only three weeks, into the Trump Presidency. We will not survive the continuing onslaught of shock events. We will be tempted to roll over and give up. Which is why I continue to write this series on the dark night.

What happens when I am not able to control the events that are causing this dark night? What am I to do to keep myself from gong crazy? What am I to do to prevent my physical and emotional energy from being sucked dry by events and situations like the past three weeks?

One obvious direction is one I have talked about many times before, and have lived for over 28 years- accepting my powerlessness and doing what I can do in my own way. Yes, but….

There is always that damned “yes, but…” In those two words I am taking back my control over things which I ultimately have no control over. Which is what I will try to get back to in the next Dark Night post. The causes of our Dark Night may be beyond our control, but if it is to have a meaning and hope, we must find the ways to keep moving forward.

But that’s next. For now let me return to Professor Lain:

How to fight back? The first step — and it is a critical one — is to recognize that the phenomenon is happening. That would explain why we have heard politicians sympathetic to Trump telling us to take a chill pill, “stay off the caffeine,” relax. We are starting to catch wind of what is going on here, and those perpetrating the chaos and invested in its success are threatened. They need us to stay distracted by the upheaval. They need us dazed, divided and confused.

The entire point of shock events is to prevent people from coming together, to prevent the democratic discourse from working.

So it is time to recognize that reality, and resist it — that’s step two. It is time for progressives to stop viewing conservatives as the people who voted us into this mess. And it is time for conservatives to stop viewing progressives as poor sports who are just mad because they lost the election.

Wake up, America. The real enemies are not one another. The enemy is the emerging autocracy of Donald Trump, and that should scare us all.
(Link)

I respond to that. It was what I was trying to do in those four weeks of conversations with a Trump Supporter. I kept trying to stay focused on the fact that we are all in the same boat. We are all Americans and we need to see what is happening to all of us. When some Trump supporters get “buyer’s remorse,” when they realize they have been hoodwinked by his promises, when things (hopefully) become clear, we need to be together! It will not be helpful for an I told you so to come out of our lips. It will need to be something we have been unable to do in this whole divisive campaign now going on for a number of years; we need to say to each other, “I understand! Let’s work on this together."

One final comment from Professor Lain, her closing paragraph in her article:

 I know you are tired, that’s the very point. But even in our highly polarized polity, what unites us is still much greater than what divides us. We are in the twilight moment, shaken by shock events and fearful of the shadow they are casting. Our task now is to recognize that fact, and come together to avoid becoming unwitting victims of the dark.
(Link)

5. Dark Night of the Soul- Purpose and Meaning

In this week’s post I want to explore the purpose and meaning of the “Dark Night of the Soul”. I’ve already talked about this in various ways, but I’d like to focus on it in a little more breadth this week. As we do this, it is important to remember, again, that the “dark night” is not dreadful and dreary, a place with no hope. As John of the Cross understood it is an exciting and possibility-filled journey.

Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined
Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!

The journey is one that is not to get something, but to become something and someone. A person is changed as the dark night continues, if one is willing to be open to what is happening. A website called Neomysticism had this to say:

The main purpose of it all is not to attain something. Rather, there's a certain consciousness — an awareness — that grows in the person who experiences this night. This will later lead to a full awakening — living from that 'higher mind' that Jesus refers to in his use of the word metanoia. [Often translated as repentance. Literally “change of mind."] God's presence is not something you attain, but something that's already there. You just become aware of it. You realize it... often through unlearning and getting rid of obstacles. That's why the journey of true spirituality is often referred to as a path of descent. You have to become less.

The last stanza of John’s poem presents this union with God this way:

I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Okay. Let’s bring this down to earth, to a way that we can understand it, not because we are less open than John, but because such poetic language needs to be unpacked. Even John wrote two books expounding on the short poem. For me, in line with what I have been writing before, I return to the Twelve Steps as developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. In particular, the concluding step, number 12:

• Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,

• we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and

• to practice these principles in all our affairs.

So the result of the dark night’s pilgrimage is:

• Spiritual awakening

John described it as “all ceased and I abandoned myself.” A spiritual awakening is not necessarily, nor very often, a moment of blinding experience. Most of the time it is the result of the path of a spiritual journey that opens us to a new way of understanding ourselves and our world. What was important is no longer important. John can say that after abandoning himself he could leave his cares “forgotten among the lilies.”

As we lie awake wrestling with the night and the issues swirling around us and our country, the idea of being able to leave the cares forgotten feels unreachable. Yet, as John said, “oh happy chance” that this would be possible. After all this IS what started us on this journey in the first place- the wrestling with things seemingly too big and too out of reach for us mere mortals. One day we come to new understandings as a result of these and we realize that we have awakened from the night. We are more spiritually awake than we were when we began. It is ongoing, to be sure, but we are different.

It is now a new spiritual day- even if the world itself still looks dark and uncertain.

The second thing about the 12th Step is the natural continuation of the awakening. We have had a spiritual awakening. Therefore we:

• Carry the message

In the 12 Steps the people who the message is taken to are of course others with the same issue- alcoholism. It makes sense then that the message we carry is first to those who struggle with the spiritual issues we have faced. It is a message to those seeking direction or answers, hope or support in what feels like a time of being lost and alone.

The world of 16th Century Spain was one of great change, difficulty, and disagreement. The worst of the Inquisition was a still fresh memory; the expulsion of the Jews from Andalusia after the “reconquest” of Spain from the Muslims was complete; Roman Catholicism as a whole was in the midst of dealing with the Protestant Reformation and its own counter-reformation. St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila were tireless in living what they had discovered in their own dark nights. They carried the message by being who they were in spite of persecution and even time in prison.

A short biography of St. John says this:  

It was not long before the exemplary lives of the small community of reformed friars and nuns that had gathered around St. John and St. Teresa respectively began attracting vocations [i.e. others who wanted to join with them in their work.]  -St. John of the Cross

When we have a spiritual awakening, the world has not changed one iota. John says that the “heart lit me from inside':

It [the heart] guided and shone
Surer than noonday sunlight over me.

We have changed. Which means for us that everything has changed. That's why we carry the message. But how do we do that? Back to the 12th Step. The best way to carry the message is to:

• Practice this new way we have learned.

Practice these principles (the way of the soul and spirit) in all we do. Speaking is not enough. It is more important that we live these principles in all we do. A phrase that has come to mean a great deal to me in the past year captures the essence of this:

How you do anything is how you do everything.

There are many ways of saying it-

• practice what you preach; 
• actions speak louder than words; 
• I’d rather see a sermon than hear one; 
• faith without works is dead.

It has to do with personal integrity and self-awareness. (More on that in the next post.) We can’t compartmentalize our lives, living one way here and another way over there. At the worst that means we are being dishonest or uncommitted to anything. At best it is being wishy-washy.

Let me give an example I have wrestled with over the last few weeks. I have often said that dialogue is important in this time and place. We need to talk with each other, not throw slogans, engage in name-calling or stereotyping. (Sarcasm can take us a long way- but in the wrong direction.) I have also said that we need to learn to find ways to express support and care for each other. Liberals, like myself, for example, can be great at standing up for the least and the lost, but overlook the least and the lost among those on the other side of the issue. We end up ignoring them, calling them ignorant or uninformed. (Note: Do not tell me that “they” do the same. I can’t change them- I can only change me.) That is NOT what I preach and say I believe. How I do anything is how I do everything.

Guilty as charged.

So, three weeks ago I was given the opportunity (by my Higher Power?) to sit next to a staunch Trump supporter. He was joyous about the new president and what was going to happen. I tried to ignore him. I’m tired of this crap. He talked about what he liked about the new president’s agenda. I tried to ignore him. I made some comments back, mostly negative. But that damn still small voice kept bugging me- how you do anything…

So I began to listen. I still heard the Trump-supporting party line. But I also began to hear the both uncertainty and hope mixed in with it. This acquaintance is best described as part of the white, male, middle class- a group easily”demonized” in these very polarized and divided times. I was able to hear, for perhaps the first time, his pain, his fear, and his reason for hoping that the new administration will do something positive.

Once I made a conscious decision to listen, really listen, things began to change. I tried not to place him in a stereotyped box, even when he made such statements about “liberals” or “Muslims”. I did challenge the generalizing and engaged in some dialogue about the issues, pointing out differences between talking points and what is happening. He began to listen to me and took in what I was saying. I hope that was because I was treating him as an equal in the dialogue. The other evening, after three weeks of this weekly conversation happening in bits and pieces, I thanked him for his willingness to talk and listen. He sat back and told me what he really hopes for in this administration, also admitting his concerns, something he would have been unwilling to do when we were on “opposite sides.”

How we do anything is how we do everything. If we spend time stereotyping others, we will not see them as individuals.If we spend time seeing those with opposing viewpoints as “the enemy” we will always be at war with them, even if we agree on more than we disagree. It took some real effort on my part to move to a point of really listening. But when I managed to do that more often than not, I found myself in real conversation about some very important things. (These are not directly related to the Dark Night discussion.  I will talk about them in another “interlude” piece in the next week or so.)

What this whole episode has done is bring to the front for me the essential work of dialogue, conversation, even mediation if needed. It means that when I stand up for certain values, I have to be willing to apply those values to those I might be in opposition to! If I believe all people are loved by God and worthy of my attention, then I cannot place some people outside that love just because I disagree with them. I can’t not love them or care about them just because I might find some of what they do as immoral, reprehensible or downright wrong. I remember when the ACLU went to court to help a white-supremacy rally occur. They value free speech and civil liberties- even when it might have been unpopular with their own constituency.

For people who are seeking a spiritual way through this time, it is always, always, always fundamental that we begin with our values. What is it that I am called to do? How am I called to do it? What are my values that guide me in all these actions? The Dark Night helps those questions become clarified and answered as we become more and more spiritually awake, these ways become clearer.

An Interlude: Dark Night Fears

I know that some of my conservative friends will accuse me of fear-mongering from my side of the fence. Or perhaps that my highly over-active imagination has gotten the best of me. Or even that age has finally caught up with my sense of reality and rational thinking.

Any of these may be true, but I don't think it is my goal to increase the level of fear in the world. In the posts on the Dark Night of the Soul that I have been doing my goal is to alleviate the fears and present ways that I, as a person of faith along with others of faith can find the light through what feels like a dark night. I will get back to that development next week. For now I wanted to take another interlude and talk about some of the issues that bring about fear. After 9 days in office, Mr. Trump has shown some clear directions.

What I see is an almost perverse style that wants to create chaos. The immigration orders from Friday are an excellent example. It appears on the surface that he simply put this executive order out and signed it without thinking through what needed to be done to implement it. Did it go into effect at that very moment is pen lifted from the paper? Was there any process of informing immigration points at busy airports what they should be doing? Was there any earlier consideration about what happens to individuals who are already here on green cards? What about those who had been here and were now overseas? Or those that were in the air at the fateful moment of signing? So far, I have not seen any information about that. (I hope we will get some answers to that!)

What happened was that somehow or another customs agents at places like JFK airport in New York just went ahead and implemented the order. The result was the chaos and fear at the airport. People who had already been upset by the order itself were mobilized through their networks of friends and family and protested. The court stepped in and put a stay on the order, as the courts had done with Obama's immigration order previously.

So, hold on to that image of chaos for a moment.

Something else has been happening in D.C. A pattern seems to emerge that when a highly public-impacting order comes out, there is also one that is more shadowy, that will get less publicity. In this case Mr. Trump also signed an order changing the personnel make-up of the "Principal's Committee" of the National Security Agency. Dropped from the committee was the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Huh?

Added to the Committee was Mr. Trump's controversial chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Double Huh?

Even George W. Bush knew better than that. He clearly instructed his chief strategist, Karl Rove, to never attend such meetings. It is not the way things should be done. Oh, I am sure Mr. Bush shared information with Rove. Of course he did. But Rove did not have a direct voice at the NSA table.

So then, these two things happened in the past 48 hours. In the midst of the uproar and chaos from the immigration order it may be hard to see the slippery move with the NSA. The immigration order impacts many, many people. It goes against the law passed by Congress over 50 years ago. (That says if the President doesn't like a law, he doesn't have to follow it?) It is probably unconstitutional even though it may not be as obvious as we think it is.

Hence, the NSA order doesn't seem to have the greater impact. Some might even be able to argue that removing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs enhances the civilian control of the military. Sorry, but national security is one of the important aspects of the military.

Some have used the word "coup" to describe what this means. I am not ready to go that direction yet.

Let's add another request by the President. He wants data that shows how criminal refugees and immigrants are. He wants a weekly report on that. Legal or illegal immigrants or refugees? It doesn't matter. These foreigners are a threat, is the message, even though statistics readily available seem to indicate that these groups have a lower crime rate than the national average.

But there have to be "alternative facts" and the President wants them. I am sure there may be those who can "find" them for him. This announcement came under the radar of his order to build the wall that Mexico will pay for- by Americans paying 20% more for goods made in Mexico due to a tariff. The wall made the news; the request for criminal data was secondary.

There are a number of possibilities of what could be at work here. He could be as clueless as these things indicate about what the repercussions of his orders are. I doubt that. He could be ignoring any advisor who warns him about these repercussions, because, Damn it! He IS the President of the United States and whatever he does is "legal."

He could also be attempting to satisfy his followers and will one day "pivot" and begin to make sense. We have been waiting for that since the nomination. I will be surprised if it happens in any significant way. Maybe he will step back some on the highly public issues and the other ones will have been slipped into place. Hardly noticed. Maybe he will "allow" his GOP Congress to turn these into some more sensible law as they seem to want to do in their own way with the Affordable Care Act. (By the way- I think all Democrats and Progressives should always refer to it as the Affordable Care Act. People don't want to repeal that. They want to repeal Obamacare!)

Here then is where the shivers begin to creep up the spine of many of us who know history, specifically the history of Germany in the early- to mid-1930s when Hitler could conceivably have been stopped. Some of this looks all too familiar. Most clearly the demonizing of a group of people. Hitler had his police report to him with all the crimes of Jews and these would be  posted. The Jews were not safe. They were criminals- even when they weren't. Before you knew it "everyone" believed that the "Jews" were bad for Germany.

The result was Kristallnacht.

But before that even happens, let's think for a moment about chaos. As protests increase- and they will- chaos will become more common. Already some state legislatures are eyeing laws to curtail the right of protest- even peaceful protest. Some of that already exists as a friend fond out when he and others were protesting the death penalty at the Supreme Court. They were in a very public area where no protests are allowed. He spent a night in jail. More of that will happen.

Chaos will increase because, as we have seen too often, there are those who use a protest to cause trouble. Riots make the news; they increase fear; laws will be enacted; protests will increase; etc.

The answer to chaos?

Martial law.

When will something occur that will be our equivalent of the burning of the German Reichstag?
I know that I am sounding like some of the more extreme critics of Mr. Obama over the last 8 years. I am very aware of that. As such, I DO understand where their fears came from, even though they were clearly unfounded, as history has shown us. These things did not happen. I hope and pray that in the end I am just as far off base as they were.

Okay, but now that I have gone this far down this dystopian road, let me make a few things clear.
First, I am not ready to say these things will happen. History, though, does have a way of following patterns and events. These are all way too much like what we saw in Germany in the 1930s. As such they can become a warning to us, not a prophecy. These events do not have to happen, but it is up to us, the people, to work as hard as we can to make sure they don't.

Second, a couple of my thinking conservative friends will tell me that this can't and won't happen here because of the way our laws and our checks and balances work. In theory I am in 100% agreement with them. Our Constitution and governmental form is set up to make sure these things do not happen. We have seen how it does work- and work well- many times over our 241 years as a nation. We came close in the Civil War. We came close in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the first it took a war. In the second it was a free and independent press and peaceful protestors being attacked that woke the nation up. In political theory, we should be okay. But theories can never take into account the insane ways we humans can find to screw things up!

I come back, then, to why I am working on the Dark Night of the Soul. This seemed like as good a place as any to enumerate some of the fears that underlie my search for direction. For me, any response and approach to these issues must be based in my spiritual life and my following the God I believe in, who can restore me to sanity if I trust that God with my will and life. The principles of the spiritual life must have something to say to how I respond to the concerns of the world I live in. If those principles are irrelevant to these, they are probably not relevant at all.

I believe they are. Thus the spiritual crisis, wrestling match, and ultimately pilgrimage of this series of posts.  I am working this out as I go along; I have no idea of where and what I will discover. I expect to be surprised when the light grows and I awake to what has been in front of me all along.

Back on the journey with another post in the next week.

4. Dark Night of the Soul- Path of the Dark Night

A couple weeks ago I was talking with a friend about this series. I commented that the impetus to explore the role of the Dark Night of the Soul was the fear and anxiety I and many were feeling after the election of Donald Trump. His first reaction was, you don’t believe this is the worst it’s going to get, do you? Isn’t that what the dark night means- that it will get better from here on?

An article I found online addressed this issue. From Our Sunday Visitor:

The dark night of the soul is not an evil to be endured; it’s a good for which we should be grateful. Of course, it doesn’t always seem that way. The thought of plunging into a spiritual abyss and losing all the sweetness in our relationship with God strikes few as appealing.

A Protestant writing in Christianity Today put it this way:

One lesson we can learn from the ancient mystics is that dark nights are not problems, but opportunities. Grasping this reality moves us beyond "How do we fix this?" to "What might I learn in this?"
--The purpose of the dark night, of course, is to strip us of our futile attempts to find God on our own terms and awaken us to a much simpler desire for intimacy with God
--Chuck DeGroat

With the awareness that this dark night is going to be helpful let us also remember that darkness IS frightening. Think about how much we are aware of things in the dark- even things that aren’t there- except in our imagination. Every creak and bump in a dark house is multiplied. The old Celtic prayer for protection included “things that go bump in the night” right along with “ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties”. Darkness, sometimes described as “wilderness”, however, is almost always seen as the path to spiritual growth.

Traditionally, spiritual directors identify three primary stages (or ways) of growth in holiness.

• The first is the purgative way, where we break habits of vice, acquire habits of virtue and learn to live a Catholic life.
• The second is the illuminative way, where we grow in virtue, charity and the life of prayer.
• And the third is the unitive way, where our wills and hearts move in perfect harmony with God’s.

In the dark night of the senses, God purifies us of our attachments to the things of the world — physical comfort, physical pleasure, material success, popular acclaim — as well as even the comfort we seek in prayer. Sorrows afflict us, and things that used to ease us — food, sex, shopping, compliments, even the liturgy — no longer do. Through this dark night, God prepares us for the illuminative way and a deeper, more contemplative life of prayer.

The dark night of the soul occurs at the end of the illuminative way, as we prepare to enter the unitive way. During this dark night, God roots out our deepest attachments to sin and self, and the desolation that accompanies that rooting out is overwhelming and crushing. - Our Sunday Visitor:

Let me talk about these stages of moving through the dark night. As we walk these steps it is important to remember the wisdom of Winston Churchill:

If you're going through hell, keep going.

It is tempting to stop, to "give up", or "give in" to fear, cynicism, anger, or reprisal. We have seen all that and experienced all that in many different ways over these weeks since the election. Those are not the ways to get through the dark night; they do not help us- or anyone- move forward. We easily get stuck in these and don’t move anywhere helpful or healthy.

What then do we go through? As in that quote from Our Sunday Visitor the first part is the purgative way. Purgative means cleansing, intense purifying, even liberating. We are talking about the path of the dark night moving us away from our attachment to things of our own doing and making; we are realizing that we are powerless over people, places, and things; we become aware of how we cling to things that are not helpful or productive in order to gain fame, fortune, or even at times a sense of calm and peace. Does it really make us feel better when we revert to angry, nasty comments? Does it help us- or anyone- when we lash out at those who differ from us? These are all the ways we act when we don’t know what else to do. “Well, they started it,” is not a good reason.

But in the dark night nothing positive seems to be working either. As John of the Cross describes it, even the deepest and most sincere prayers and rituals seem to lose their effectiveness. God seems to have abandoned us. We may cry, “How can God let this happen?” We feel lost and lonely.

At that point we have two choices.

• Admit we are lost and nothing can help us or 
• decide there has to be a power greater than ourselves who can get us through this. So we go searching in a sense of desperate hope. The Catholic Dictionary says we discover that as we detach from the things we have trusted we move closer to God and

the will becomes more firmly attracted to God and more securely attached to his divine will. This purification, however, is only a means to an end, namely, 1. to give greater glory to God, who is thereby loved for himself and not for the benefits he confers; 2. to lead the one thus purified to infused contemplation and even ecstatic union with God; 3. to enable the mystic to be used more effectively by God for the spiritual welfare of others, since the more holy a person is the more meritorious are that person's prayers and sacrifices for the human race. -Catholic Dictionary

This is the seed of the illuminative way- the second phase on the path. Down in the depths of that dark night, as we struggle and wrestle and seek beyond our deepest longings, we also discover some light. Enlightenment. In Twelve Step language, we come to believe that there is a power greater than ourselves. This is a power that can make sense of what is happening to us, that can lead us into new understandings of the world we inhabit- as well as the inner life we each can develop. We can be restored to sanity. We do not need to “give up” or “give in” to the world, our fears or desires, even our personal ideologies, political or religious positions, institutions. In our search for comfort and release of fear we have often relied on these. It is time to move on. We need to “surrender” to the Higher Power.

One would think that such a surrender would be the start of something wondrous and bright. And at first it does seem so. It is like a “pink cloud” where everything is hopeful. That is but the beginning. We are so used to hearing that all one must do is “trust God and all will be okay” that when it doesn’t happen that way we get upset, angry, or lose faith. What has happened is that we have experienced part of the joy of cleansing of the senses and physical issues. We must then, as John of the Cross guides us, also be cleansed of the spiritual issues.

It may be necessary for us to give up warm and fuzzy religious feelings, or have them taken from us by God so we can draw closer to Him. Catholics United for the Faith

The action of surrendering is not as easy as we would like; we are not done with the cleansing. Or more to the point, simply coming to believe is not the end. Much still can block us from the light at the end of the dark night. As part of the spiritual growth ahead of us we must also take a serious look at who we are and what has led us to this point. In the Twelve Step programs this is the “housecleaning” stage.

• We take a searching and fearless moral inventory and share it with a trusted mentor. (Twelve Steps, Four and Five)
• We discover our shortcomings and ongoing character defects and become willing to surrender them. (Twelve Steps, Six and Seven)
• We become aware of those we may have harmed or had difficult relationships with and make amends. (Twelve Steps, Eight and Nine)
• We learn how to take a regular self-inventory and be quick to make amends when we have hurt another. (Twelve Steps, Ten)

These are deeply spiritual steps.

• These force us to look inside and be honest about ourselves. 
• They make us confront the ways we may still cling to the old ways of self-centeredness, anger, resentment. 
• They lead us into finding new ways to relate to the people in our lives and the world around us. 
• They are preparing us to be awake in our spirit and in the Spirit of our Higher Power.

This may seem like a long way to get to what is happening in the world in these early days of 2017. We now have a new president, one who has arguably been the most controversial and disliked candidate-now-president in modern politics. Many remain fearful of what he is going to do. Many have seen him do things that they find unacceptable and promote values they have difficulty accepting. Many are ready to stand up to him and challenge him in the face of his supporters who tell us to “get over it.”

I believe what we are facing is an ongoing spiritual journey. We have only been at this specific journey since early November. It took many by surprise. Too many of us were complacent, almost sluggish. The election was a shock to our system. It told us that we didn't know our country as well as we thought we did. It told us that there is more going on here than we were paying attention to. Many of us have felt like we were swimming in quicksand, being pulled down and out. That is how, for me, the dark night began this journey.

Spiritual can be a confusing term. I am using it here in both the traditional "mystic" sense of becoming unified with a Higher Power (being part of something greater than ourselves) and in the awareness of being connected to those around us- our fellow human beings. These must always be together no matter what spiritual tradition, or lack of one, we may have come from. The journey will be unique for each of us, based on who we are and what we have experienced. It must also be in connection with others.

Marks of the spiritual can take many forms:

• love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
• humility, forgiveness, and acceptance
• honesty, openness, and willingness.

to name but a few.

For us to be prepared for a spiritual journey, one must have been spiritually prepared. That is where we are now. We are at a beginning. These stages of the journey, or the Twelve Steps as a paradigm, or your training and direction and how that happens. We are less than 90 days into this particular journey. We are preparing.

January 20 Thoughts- In the Midst of a Dark Night For Many

Acceptance of the person as the President does not mean

• That I will be silent and acquiesce to what I disagree with,
• That I will not actively protest against what I find offensive to my values and the values of democracy and freedom, or that
• I pray for him to fail, except at those things which will harm our nation. 

Acceptance of Mr. Trump as President means

• that he was elected and I am willing to maintain my peaceful opposition to him and policies that I will work to change if I feel they are harmful.

It means that, as I have done with every President I have lived under in my 68 years, I will pray that he IS successful at

• keeping America great, 
• restoring that which may need restoring,
• supporting the least and the lost whether they be in poverty or forgotten middle-class workers, and
• that peace may reign thanks to our stance as a country to be fair to all.

Do not tell me to "Get over it!" Yet,

• I am always willing to discuss and civilly debate the issues. 
• I am willing to listen to reasoned arguments. 
• I will not denigrate those who voted for him. 
• I will maintain my acceptance of the peaceful transfer of power that we celebrated today.

I continue to wrestle with the dark night of the soul and will post the next installment of that series in the next few days. For today, I know that these may be difficult days ahead for many people. I have still not come to terms with what this can mean. As an American citizen, I rejoice in the peaceful election process. I hope we do not learn of more problems with the election than what we have already heard.

For today, I go to bed with a sense of

• weariness over the divisions, 
• compassion for those who lives may be made more difficult by the actions of the new administration, and 
• hope that we will discover ways to work together as the country we claim to be.

Dark Night of the Soul #3: An Earlier Experience

My only previous experience of a dark night-type experience was over 30 years ago now. Details have become foggy, but it all began with a premonition. I envisioned a war in the Middle East during August of 1982. About two years earlier, in 1980, I had been asked to choose hymn verses and write prayers for our denominational devotional, The Daily Texts. I was assigned August 1982. As I read through the daily scriptures for the month I found myself growing afraid. They seemed to indicate that a war was coming in the Middle East. This idea got planted firmly in my conscious and unconscious mind.

This was only enhanced in November 1980 when I hosted a trip to Israel. Among the group who traveled with me were several people who believed that the Second Coming was imminent. An important part of that view is war in the Middle East. They spent a great deal of time talking about that as we toured the country. They almost seemed more interested in that than in the religious and spiritual aspects of the trip. The visit to Har Megiddo (Armageddon) was particularly difficult!

One afternoon I had some free time and I went to one of the hills on the outskirts of Jerusalem and sat there meditating, contemplating and praying. I could envision fighter jets flying over the walls of the Old City. My overactive imagination did its thing. It cemented the fear and uncertainty I was feeling. It remained there when I returned home. A few months after the trip our daughter was born. Now there was more reason to fear and worry.

I lost many nights sleep over the next 18 months. I didn’t talk about it to anyone for months. It was a constant presence in my thoughts, under the surface at times, but always bubbling up in the night. I became interested in St. John of the Cross and his writing at that point, but was unable to truly connect it with what I was going through. Nothing I did seemed to ease the tension. I began trying to figure out how to survive the coming war. It was no longer located in the Middle East in my imagination. It had become World War III. We owned a vacation place in the wilds of northern Pennsylvania so I decided that this would be as good a place as any to survive such a war. I planned that we would go there for the month of August. I never explained why.

I did go to see a pastoral counselor at one point. All he did was make it worse. “It must be something to have that ability at premonition,” was the only comment I remember. Not a help. I don’t think he was being sarcastic. Ironic, maybe. I did finally talk to my wife about it, but by then I was overwhelmed and just looking forward to getting past August. I knew it was crazy, but it was still alive.

Needless to say nothing happened. August 1982 came and went. I went back to “normal” life- or so I thought. Looking back from 35 years later I see that something else happened. It was but the beginning of a longer dark night that took another six years to finish. During this time my use of alcohol increased significantly. I would go up to our vacation place by myself. I would spend days alternating between drinking myself drunk at night and working on sermon and worship planning during the days. Days were productive; nights were hell. I would find renewal in the daylit woods and writing but the darkness would bring the demons. It is not an unusual pattern for a deepening alcoholic. I didn’t realize it was happening and even had trouble describing it several years later when faced with the outcome. But I tried something- in July 1984 we moved from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.

Geographic escapes don’t work any better than any other actions of denial. The darkness was deepening and I was oblivious to the problems. A number of other personal and emotional storms began to develop. I began to question my own direction, desires, calling. I was outwardly doing well; inwardly I was falling apart. And no one knew it. Least of all myself. Can I blame it on the inability to identify the dark night of the early 1980s? Could it have been avoided if I had taken a different approach before it reached these stages?

No, I don’t think so. One of the difficulties of becoming spiritually mature and insightful is that you have to be old enough to have had the necessary experiences. Premature maturity is truly an oxymoron. The darkness at the beginning of that decade was the start of the dark night. It was setting the stage for what was to come. Through the mid-1980s I struggled with an inner darkness. I thought there had to be light shining somewhere in there; in truth I was fooling myself since I was looking for answers in my own understanding. I was refusing to allow the spirit touch my soul, although I knew that I wanted it.

My drinking expanded. It was a classic binge drinking pattern. It was easy to binge when I was away from home. I would go to conferences and hide in my room at night. I would visit friends in New York and make sure I had enough to drink when I was alone in what I called my “monk’s cell” in their apartment. I would walk the streets of New York with loneliness in the midst of eight million people. I was lost in my own darkness and unable to see the dark night St. John talked about.

Until finally, in late 1988 I had my own epiphany. I had become an alcoholic. I needed help. I entered treatment. Part of me expected it to be an escape. It turned into freedom. I thought it would be a way out of the inner hell I had created. Instead it became a way through that hell. It was a true dark night for in reality the night that John describes is an awareness of- and acceptance of- powerlessness and personal unmanageability in all areas of one’s life. Which is, of course, the First Step of Alcoholics Anonymous. I wouldn’t have used the words from John’s first stanza at that time. I do now!

On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.

John describes this first stanza of the dark night as purging the lower self- the sensual self. In my years of sobriety and work as a substance abuse counselor, I would say that this is a good way to describe the work of the first three steps of AA. That purging or “housecleaning” is then described in steps four through nine. It is necessary. Most addicts and alcoholics have been hijacked by the senses and feelings of the “pleasure center” of the brain. Or rather, their chemical use has hijacked that area and turned their lives into hell. There is a constant search in the bottle or the pills, the weed or the next line, to get rid of the thoughts and feelings that seem to never go away.

—Oh, happy chance!— 

 that I was able to go forth and discover, in the midst of darkness, the light that shines in that darkness.

I could spend many days putting the dark night and early recovery together, which is not the purpose of this particular series. When I started this discussion of the dark night and how I have come to approach the current political and cultural issue I did not expect it to go this direction. I did not- and do not- have the whole thing outlined and ready for “prime time.” It is through my times of writing that these things work out. As I wrote the first two posts I realized that, for me, this is part of a longer and more profound journey. In putting this together I am describing my pilgrimage and its present location. I do not believe that this is unique to me. The language I use in the telling is mine but the experiences are far more common than not.

Within the next week we will have a new president. The divisiveness, anger, fear, and even hatred shown in the campaign and transition period was what spurred this series. There are times when I see a post on Facebook or a news story about some particularly difficult event that I get this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Anxiety builds; darkness seems to be more prevalent. It doesn’t appear as if that is going away any time soon. For today, and at least the next few weeks, the question is how do I live and grow through this? The Dark Night remains the best paradigm for me to work from.

In the next post I will delve more deeply into the path the dark night takes us on. John is very clear about what that is and why. I will utilize my experience of the Twelve Steps in that, but it is not about alcoholism or addiction. It is about the spiritual journey. John states that the goal of this journey into the dark night is

the state of the perfect, which is that of the Divine union of the soul with God.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the purpose of the twelve Steps is the same, though in different words-

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps… and to practice these principles in all our affairs. [emphasis added]

Dark Night of the Soul #2: St. John of the Cross

In the first post of this series on the dark night and the movement from last year’s election, I introduced the relief I felt when I realized that my experience and possibly that of others, was a movement of the soul for me. At the heart of it was the nearly 500-year old understanding of the movement toward union and unity with God.

The image of the Dark Night of the Soul in that growth toward union comes from the mystical vision and writings of St. John of the Cross. It is deeply embedded into Christian mysticism and Catholic tradition. It is powerful and life-changing.

Saint John of the Cross (1542 – 1591) was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, a Roman Catholic saint, a Carmelite friar and a priest. He is also known for his writings. Both his poetry and his studies on the growth of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and one of the peaks of all Spanish literature. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_the_Cross

John, though 25 years her junior, was a contemporary, and a colleague of St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). Together their writings and work are the foundation of over 400 years of prayer and faithfulness. Their friendship cultivated John’s visions that became the understanding of the dark night of the soul.

The Dark Night of the Soul, a poem written in 1578 or 1579, narrates the journey of the soul from her bodily home to her union with God. It happens during the night, which represents the hardships and difficulties she meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator. There are several steps in this night, which are related in successive stanzas. The main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

When I first came across the idea of a dark night over 35 years ago, I thought, as do many, that it is a time of great distress, loss, and uncertainty. While those are some of the experiences of a dark night, to get stuck on that idea is to lose the incredible power of what this is all about.

The main idea of the poem can be seen as the joyful experience of being guided to God. The only light in this dark night is that which burns in the soul. And that is a guide more certain than the mid-day sun. (Aquésta me guiaba, más cierto que la luz del mediodía.) This light leads the soul engaged in the mystic journey to divine union. -https://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

The poem begins with an underlying joy, in spite of the darkness:

On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.

In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised
--oh, happy chance!--
In darkness and in concealment,
My house being now at rest.

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.

Note the repetition of “oh, happy chance!” in stanzas one and two and “In the happy night” at the start of the third. John is letting his readers know that while the darkness and trials of the “night” may seem things to be avoided, there is more to this than meets the eye- or any of the normal senses. This is a higher power than our human powers. This is the work of God. This is a way toward union with the very Creator of the universe.

It has been felt by some that all people go through these ups and downs of living. It is such a powerful phrase that seems to describe many human reactions, such use is no surprise. But, no, this is different. It is different in quality, in source, and finally, in its conclusion.

The "dark night of the soul" does not refer to the hardships and difficulties of life in general, although the phrase has understandably been taken to refer to such trials. The nights which the soul experiences are the necessary purgations on the path to divine union: the first is of the sensory or sensitive part of the soul, the second of the spiritual part. Such Purgations comprise the first of the three stages of the mystic journey, followed by Illumination and Union. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

Which is why I was at first hesitant to apply the dark night to what I have been going through since the beginning of November. So many people were reacting in ways similar to the way I was feeling. It was situational, built from the shock and negativity of the election. It might even see self-righteous, grandiose, or even insensitive to take this solely upon myself. It’s not all about me, in spite of what I may want to believe.

But then I realized- remembered(?!)- that God comes to us in the midst of our own individual lives. God speaks to us from the events of the world we live in. God calls us into deeper union by what is occurring in our own souls. Might it be that the feelings engendered by the election are part of something in me that I need to pay attention to? Might it be that for me this is the next phase of my own spiritual movement? Might it be that by publishing this on my blog others might find a way through their own experiences that just might be for them a dark night experience?

I have been interested in mysticism for almost 50 years. I have been intrigued by the mystical traditions of my Christian faith as well as the faith of my Jewish ancestors. I have been moved by the mystical world of the Muslim poet Rumi, the depth of Howard Thurman’s practices, and Evelyn Underhill’s explanations. Mystical stories have been found in my own Moravian history in the renewal of the ancient church by an experience of the Holy Spirit in the 1720s at the same time as the mysticism of the Baal Shem Tov was revolutionizing Eastern European Judaism. I saw the events of the charismatic movement and wondered.

There is something deep, profound, and ultimately world-shattering about these- and the countless other examples from myriad traditions and places.With all this, it should probably not have surprised me when the mystical tradition of St. John of the Cross and St. Terese of Avila, two of my favorites, came to the surface as a result of these past two months. In these two posts so far I have set the history. In the next one I will explain some of my past exposure to the dark night and its place in who I am- and most likely in who I am becoming.

Dark Night of the Soul #1: Awareness

It finally became clear to me yesterday what this whole thing with the post-election blahs and blues has been- and is. I should have recognized it; I’ve been through it before. The symptoms are real.

• There is a darkness that seems to be holding me down. 
• There is the inability to think clearly and in thoughtful sentences. 
• Moments of panic or anxiety attack when least expected. 
• A Facebook meme or a news article related to the election and the in-coming administration cause the floor to sink beneath me. 

At first I thought it was part of the grief process of the election. That was part of it, but it felt too strong, too profound for that alone.

I now see that what I am facing is truly a dark night of the soul.

Do not take that as a condemnation of Mr. Trump or anyone else. The dark night of the soul is not a disaster waiting to happen. Rather it is, in many ways, an awakening to the darkness that leads us to light. It is a beginning of acceptance of the reality that is ever around us. It is awareness that we are poor, powerless human beings who, left to our own devices will pretty well screw it all up. (An understatement!) The dark night comes when we leave the uncertain and human-made light and seek answers in those places we are often afraid to enter- most often the depths of the human heart and soul at its worst- and at its best.

    •    We fear the racism and prejudice of some people- because we know it is not that far beneath our own surface. I know it is in me and I am afraid.
    •    We react to the blind greed of others- because we know that we are in it for ourselves as well. We believe if it’s good for us, it’s good for everyone- even if it isn’t. I know I can be greedy and I am ashamed.
    •    We react to the demeaning of others of different faiths or gender or lifestyle- because we know we have been guilty of the same reactions to those who were on the winning side. I know of times I have looked askance at someone different from me and I am guilty.
    •    I get angry at the possibility of decreasing my Social Security or Medicare- because I know how vulnerable I can be and anger is easier to express that sadness.
    •    I don’t know how to interact with those on the other side who seem so God-awful sure of themselves- because I have felt that way.
    •    I don’t know how to express hope that things will get better- because politics is often nothing more than hope deferred.
    •    I don’t know how to stand up for what I feel is right and appropriate- because I have been doing that for fifty years and I am tired.

So it came as a moment of incredible relief when I realized what it is that I - and many - are going through. For me and my understanding, the dark night of the soul is a time of growth and cleansing. It is a period of self-examination, confession, atonement, and forward movement. It is my soul telling me to take the next steps into a deeper life of the spirit. I can’t say it has eased my fears or anger to have come to that. It is only a new insight. But at least I now have a direction, an opening that, from past experience and knowledge, I know can be healing and holy.

I am going to attempt in several posts over the next month to look at this a little more fully and share it with you here. Please feel free to react and respond to me. Again, it is NOT a criticism of Mr. Trump, his followers, Republicans, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, or anyone else. The election was so hateful, negative, and out-of-control that many on both sides feel frustrated and wrung out. We may very well find ourselves searching our national soul in these next months and years to find a new anchor, a renewed sense of who we are as a nation.

We must stay in this together. We must talk, disagree, agree, laugh, cry and eventually move forward together. Our national spirit is calling us to do so.