Dark Night of the Soul

Dickens began one of his most well-known writings, A Tale of Two Cities, with this unapologetic statement:

“It was the best of times, It was the worst of times…”

It sounds so insightful and bold. Even without reading further, your mind paints pictures of what that means in a removed sort of way:

“It was the best of times” paints a scene maybe from The Great Gatsby with a mansion lit for an evening party. 1920’s limousines driven by dapper gentlemen or even perhaps chauffeurs pull up to the curb and lovely young women emerge in shimmering dresses and stylish hats, perhaps with a trinket garnish and single feather. There is champagne, laughter, trivial talk, even gaiety.

“It was the worst of times.” I see a red kettle poised on a tripod stand near the door of a storefront shop in a nameless city. The hollow clank of a nickel as it hits the base of the kettle hurts my stomach. It doesn’t even give the courtesy of spinning and reverberating its own pitiful sound for a moment. Just, “clank.” One, and done.

As humans, we might be willing to negotiate for some tolerable piece of middle-ground between “best” and “worst.” But that was not offered to us; we don’t get to make that call. In fact, what we do get is only (and this is not small) the choice of our own perspective. We can choose to try to spend our lives between soaring or being knocked down or just staying knocked down because, this side of Eternity, gravity always wins.

I picture the scene in City Slickers, the comedy-western movie where three men riding on horseback herding cattle are preparing to have real conversation (which apparently can only happen in the wilderness or near a campfire). The question is posed: “What was your best day and what was your worst day?” The man answers: “Same day.” You feel cheated by his answer, expecting two stories to emerge when in fact, there is just one story – one story with both a dark side and a light side.

On days when all seems bleak, and there is virtually no wind in your proverbial sails, the thought “How can I go on like this?” ambles across your mind. What you do not see, what you lose sight of, is that as you plow through and tough it out, you are being watched, observed by others. You are giving someone else courage, the inspiration to hang in there and make their next good move towards meaning and significance.

I am pretty sure the great Catholic mystics were referencing THIS experience when they named it: “the dark night of the soul.” It is a transition period -and we don’t know how long – that, while difficult, can be incredibly fruitful. But, if you try to read about it in St. John of the Cross’ writings you get kind of circled around by the literary repetition that the whole concept is hard to grasp. (His great work was written as a poem in Spanish, and when it translated to English, it became cumbersome to interpret, at best.) At the outset we can say this experience is not clinical depression. It is something Other. It almost escapes words. It is like waiting for the last train at the Station, knowing it will come, but the waiting can be so wearisome. In his song “Hold On,” contemporary singer Toby Mac assures:

“He’s never early, never late. He’s gonna stand by what He said. Help is on the way.”

The hope that this statement is true is what you cling to through this transition. And if you can remember it is a transition, because all of life is transition, and/or transitory, you can keep a bit of perspective through the rest of the uncertainty.

My current transition period feels more manageable because people keep talking me through it. They are talking. I am talking. They are listening. I am listening. Yes, sometimes people do admittedly say things that are unhelpful or throw me backwards emotionally. But that is an occupational hazard of humans trying to know exactly what to say when there really seems to be nothing obviously helpful to say. I admit that it is in the talking, the connectedness, that I find comfort. Sadly, sometimes I watch television just to see complete human dialogue happening. This pastime links me emotionally with most people in nursing homes … twenty years earlier than I would prefer it to, and it makes me sad.

I could at this point itemize the hardships and challenges that brought me to this juncture – two job changes within six months, a friend moving away, loss of a relative, loss of a dear friend, and betrayal by someone I care about. But for obvious reasons, I need to defer from specifics. So, I will point you in another better direction for understanding how the dark night of the soul works and is different than depression.

She is the ultimate example of “what you see is only part of what you get”: Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She stood only four feet tall but radiated a focused purposefulness seasoned with genuine human warmth. She knew what it was like to be on one vocational path and have her plan de-railed by the Divine Plan as she sat on a train and heard the interior Voice she so loved telling her to serve the Poor. She left a teaching order of sisters to form a new outreach to the unfortunate ones on the streets of Calcutta. She was doubted by some in church leadership. She was hassled by some government officials. She probably had days when everything felt like pushing a large rock up hill in a snow storm. The strong calling she felt when she began her mission remained, even though the Voice that spoke to her initially became more of an almost-whisper. She continued to pray through this dark feeling of almost abandonment. She hung in there. She was faithful. She was fruitful. She was bold.

My favorite Mother T quote of all times was at a breakfast with the presiding Clintons and Washington Politicians. She got up and said, directly into the microphone: “It is a poverty that a child should die so that you can live as you wish.” And therein the message on the Sanctity of Human Life was most directly delivered by the one person no one could say anything bad about. (Although atheist Christopher Hitchens’ later pitiful attempt to detract from her reputation was only demolished by the powerful truth of who she was: a humble servant, doing the business of serving and reminding others to do the same.) No Pope, no bishop, no leader, no statesman could have said it better or more clearly. Her words, in a broken warbly little senior citizen voice, resounded because of who she was.

Amidst her work with the poor in Calcutta, starting a religious order, and doing international speaking engagements to wake the rest of the world up to suffering they could actually do something about, she was going through her own deep, personal suffering. It is the suffering of one who waits, but only hears silence. The world saw one thing on the surface: her extreme charity. The other thing below the surface was this silent suffering, this feeling of almost-abandonment by Divine Providence. Did she have a moment before she left the earth when this experience lightened, or lifted from her? I do not know. But I know as she passed into Eternity she must have heard the words her soul craved, “Well done! My good and faithful servant!” The quantity of people that passed by her casket to pay final respects was innumerable. Probably only the other saint of our generation, John Paul the Second, drew such a crowd in my lifetime.

It is highly unlikely that I will ever become that kind of saint. But I can be the very best version of ME and continue to walk the way as I understand it. One moment of perfection may never be granted to me. A successful ministry may not come from my efforts. I may be denied opportunities given to other people that I would have preferred for myself. The people I love may not love me back with the same zeal. And, I may be the victim of vicious, lying tongues. But if I stay faithful, stay focused, and hang in there, good will come. And for every suffering I have had to endure, I hear the voice of my dear, saintly Aunt Nellie, “Chrissie, love, this too shall pass. This too shall pass.”

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