Waters choked me to death; the abyss whirled around me. (Jonah, the Bible)
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
In his wonderful book, Dark Night of the Soul, Thomas Moore addresses the question of how we find our way through life’s ordeals. He perceives these times as spiritual challenges, a time of calling to be more than we are. Perhaps like the 135 pound mother who finds within herself the strength to lift a two ton car off of her trapped child, we become more than we knew we could be when we are challenged by life’s hardships.
At some time or another, most people go through a period of sadness, trial, loss, frustration, or failure so disturbing that it feels it will never end. You may be in a difficult marriage, you may be dealing with chronic or terminal illness, trying to come to grips with a terrible betrayal, grieving a deep and aching loss, or going through a period of emptiness and lack of meaning. This period of desolation is often called the dark night of the soul. If you are like most people, you have gone through several dark nights of the soul. You may find yourself in one right now.
Both psychology and religion tend to avoid these dark times by hiding behind diagnoses, medication, platitudes, or false assurances, trying to ‘cure’ them or make them go away. But what you are going through is not just a mood or a ‘feeling.’ Rather, as More asserts, and I believe, it is an experience that pares life down to its essentials, and helps you figure out what matters most. This experience is not extraordinary or rare, but a natural part of life. As horrible as it may be at the time, it can deepen your insight and compassion, and offer you an opportunity for a new start, a fresh way of seeing things, a more authentic way of being.
Grief was one of my darkest nights of the soul. Currently I am finding, and suspect that I will continue to find, that dealing with the challenges of aging moves one into a deep silence that can be dark, but can also be restoring, and re-storying.
I once saw an inscription on a tomb that I loved; it read Further In and Higher Up! To accept the dark times as important times of transition and transformation, to find some kind of meaning in them, isn’t easy, but I truly believe that it is another opportunity to deepen our awareness, to be re-born yet again, to move “further in and higher up.”