The Dark Night Bears Fruit

We hear so much about how faith 'heals,' how it 'makes us strong' and takes away all our 'weakness.'  But a great part of the Christian life is in fact a painful yearning for God, who is with us if we would only see him.  "Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves;  I sought him, but I found him not;  I called him, but he gave no answer" (Song of Songs 3:1).

I want to compare some poems that I wrote a month or so apart during this period of seeming spiritual dryness.  None of them are much to speak about from a literature point of view, but they were my measly attempts to put my feelings into words, and I hope they show some sort of progression.  The first really expresses a lot of the feelings in my last post.

Being Before the Sacrament

A Witness

The cross on my neck has no meaning

It does not move or speak to me

Though I am waiting.

I hold it through force of habit

And feel nothing.

The mat underneath my face

Scratches.  I don’t care.

I worm my cheek into the rough,

Eyes down.

Cold seeps up my back, my feet.

This gets to me,

Not because it speaks to me on any particular plane

But because it has always annoyed me,

And it is irritation, rather than resolution,

That gets me off the mat.

Friday 8^th March 2013

Douglas kitchen after a difficult day

I have an icon of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9) above the desk where I say morning prayer.  Icons are written to draw you in, to compel you to prayer and an acknowledgment of the divine simply by being in their presence.  This happened this morning, and I just had to write some of the thoughts that crystallised down.

17:1-9

 

He leads up the mountain.

They follow: “Teacher.”

Life seems hard, but simple.

The know no other.

The top of the mountain.

They know, they see: “Christ.”

They are thrown down.

Why me?  This terrible gift?

Life was so much

Simpler.  Ignorance was

Bliss.

How much harder is reality?

Monday 15^th March 2013

One of the things that we don't often acknowledge as Christians is the fact that to a certain extent, ignorance is bliss.  If you are looking for easy answers and an easy life planned out for you, then Christ is not the one you are seeking.  

The prophet Isaiah wrote, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways... for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).  This man who had such an intense relationship with God had to acknowledge that he could never understand his Lord.  

Jesus said, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23).  I have grown up in a society in which personal autonomy, the absolute right to life choices and the absolute desire to be in full control as we make them is the norm.  We tell ourselves that if we are in control then we will be happy.  We have the power to take hold of our own lives and do what we want with ourselves.

Perhaps therefore, denying myself and taking up my cross means acknowledging - I mean REALLY acknowledging - that accepting the reality that Christ is in the world, that God is working in me and around me, and that I can never hope to understand His ways or His thoughts, means giving up that desire to control my relationship with Him.

"I sought him, but I found him not."  I'm not going to stop seeking Him, but I am going to try to trust a bit more that He is hurting just as much as I am through my not finding Him, and that His plans for me are good, even if it doesn't always feel like it.

"I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.  And I lay down my life for the sheep."  John 10:14-15