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Alan Creech
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August 31, 2008
> 11:45 AM
dark night revisited Listening to Michael Spencer talk about what he's calling "spiritual depression" this morning has made me think of some things that have gone on in my own life for a long time and especially fairly recently. This kind of thing has also been called a dark night of the soul experience. It feels down. It feels bad, really bad. Sure, there are absolutely depressions which are a result of chemical imbalances as well as very dysfunctional life-experiences that damage our insides. These things are real and I've dealt with some of this as well. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish one from the other - a spiritual depression from a mental or physiological depression. They often feel the same and we're so used to not talking about the dark nights in our day and time, we may dismiss this without even considering that how we're feeling may be a direct result of God being at work in our souls. I'm interweaving with the Internet Monk today - connecting these thoughts with another post of his about finding spiritual direction, the need for it, etc. The connection I'm seeing here is that it is very difficult to discern what's going on in our own spiritual insides by ourselves. Sometimes we're so punch-drunk because of it, we aren't able to see or hear properly. We need help. We need the help of someone who's been through what we're going through, who's more mature. We need the other members of the Body of Christ. We need community. God did not design us to be alone and to have to figure all this out on our own. Unfortunately, we don't all have ideal access to available, mature brothers and sisters, or to any sort of what one might call "real community." We may be "in Church" but have no real community relationships to speak of. That's too many of us to talk about and if God weeps, He's probably weeping over that. I should have put this quote at the beginning, but now is good enough. This is my favorite quote, I think, of St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul. It speaks directly, albeit allegorically, to all of our spiritual lives. We DO go through this, whether we realize it or not. Not realizing it is sometimes a part of our problem. This is partly due to our closed hearts as well as to our imperfect and broken circumstances. So, read this and meditate on it. Think about how this fits in with what you may be going through, or have gone through. Think about it now because you WILL go through it. "...even as is the tender child by its loving mother, who warms it with the heat of her bosom and nurtures it with sweet milk and soft and pleasant food, and carries it and caresses it in her arms; but, as the child grows bigger, the mother gradually ceases caressing it, and, hiding her tender love, puts bitter aloes upon her sweet breast, sets down the child from her arms and makes it walk upon its feet, so that it may lose the habits of a child and betake itself to more important and substantial occupations." Labels: spiritual formation 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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