Dark Night of the Soul--Part 1

The following is the first installment of a two-part entry:

The mysterious "soul" has dominated my spiritual musings over the last several years. I find its slippery nature and ability to elude definition absolutely fascinating. And as I've discussed aspects of the soul with various people, this idea of the "dark night of the soul" seems to pique the most interest. I think that's because the loneliness, pain, and redemption of the dark night resonates with nearly everyone. Most people have been through at least one dark night of the soul, and maybe many. And if you have, then you know the agony, the feelings of solitude and hopelessness that accompany the dark night. But, maybe, hopefully, you can also attest to the growth that comes during the shadow times. In my previous "soul" entries, I kind of skirted around the issue of really defining the soul, but I suggested that the soul happens at the intersection of human and the divine. It's where the most temporal, fragile, non-permanent parts of ourselves meet up with the most divine part of us, which is God. So at this intersection we have our practical self, the part of us that lives each day here; and we've got our divine self, the very breath of God mentioned in Genesis. And we've got our evolving self: that part of us that is becoming whatever it is we choose to be during our time here on this planet.

And just like each day on this planet is marked by both light and darkness; each life on this planet is marked by both comforting times and shadow times. And for better or worse we often learn more about ourselves from the periods of pain. So what exactly is a dark night? Well we're dealing with the soul here so definitions become a bit slippery and don't tend to stay inside the walls we make for them. But essentially, a dark night is a time when we may feel alone and perhaps neglected by God. This can be brought on by any number of circumstances: a failing marriage, illness, children in trouble, work trouble, financial trouble, spiritual seeking that seems to go nowhere, and the list goes on.

There is one distinction I want to make, and it is a subtle one. I'm not necessarily talking about clinical depression here. Depression is a sickness that needs some form of treatment to regulate or hopefully heal. A dark night is often a doorway to a spiritual ordeal. It is a meaningful event. It's not something to be "healed" from as much as it is an opportunity for enrichment. It's a chance to wait on God and see what wisdom and gifts might present themselves. It's a chance to practice patience and maybe live a little smaller than we're used to. Clinical depression may very well be a dark night of the soul; but while waiting on God, some form of treatment should be sought. As with all things "soul," definitions are slippery here and hard and fast rules often only confuse.

Now the darkness I refer to isn't necessarily something sinister. It just means that especially during these times there are things happening to us that aren't readily seen. That the soul is changing in ways that may not come to light for some time. There are some things that can't be learned in the full light of the day. About a year ago I was putting my youngest daughter, Abby, to bed. I turned out the light, went over and sat on her bed, and as I bent down to give her a kiss and tell her how much I loved her something caught my eye. I looked up and noticed a whole row of glow-in-the-dark stickers Abby had put on the wallpaper in her room. So I reached up to peel the first one off, and it started to tear the wall paper. Long story short, a year later the stickers are still there, and that evening I sent Abby into her own dark night of the soul (just kidding!). The point is that just like those glow-in-the-dark stickers there is wisdom and understanding that can only be illuminated under cover of darkness. And while that is true, it's also a lot easier to say than it is to deal with. So what are we to do with these times?

Matthew 26:36-44

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me." And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt." And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? "Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done." And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more....

Here we have Jesus, God incarnate, facing his own dark night and one of the lessons he gives us is to accept it. He is terrified nearly to the point of death, and he asks God to take it away, but ultimately he embraces God's will. A more contemporary example is Nelson Mandela, who fought against the apartheid government in South Africa and spent 27 years in prison. Certainly that could be considered a dark night, yet rather than grow bitter he embraced his time and used it to become a courageous and compassionate leader who, upon his release, changed the government of his country and inspired the world. An example that hits closer to home to me is my own father. He died from cancer several years ago. But before he died from cancer, he lived with it for 11 years. Shortly before he died, he told me about the weight of the illness hitting him especially hard one day. He had come home from a business trip in the middle of the afternoon, it was raining outside and he was all alone. He said he laid on the couch and cried, feeling alone, abandoned, sad, and angry. And even while the tears and fears were quite real, he worked hard and eventually found a way to give back: counseling many people who were dealing with their own cancers. He used to say that, "God may not have given me this time with cancer but he sure is helping me use it." He also used to say that although he hadn't been cured of his cancer, he had been healed. He became more compassionate and less dogmatic. His "religiousness" gave way to a beautiful spirituality and he experienced God in many new and different ways. That healing took place by embracing his situation, looking for the blessings and sharing those. And he became a wounded healer himself, helping others along their own path to healing.

Jesus' garden, Mandela's prison cell, and my father's empty living room were all cocoons of sorts. They were the environments in which the soul grows and experiences a new birth.

In the next entry I'll explore some ways to deal with the dark nights