Darkness prepares us for the light
In this episode I talk about the "Dark Night of the Soul" . I explore the meaning of Darkness and what St John of the Cross had to say about it. Advent will soon be here, the season of celebrating the Dark with the anticipation of the Light at Christmas.
It is also a reflection on how we all find ourselves in darkness and the hope of Light
Hi everyone. Did you ever think about light and darkness? Well, today I'm I walk together. That's what we're going to talk about. Oh, and welcome to our walk together. This is the place where we have a chance to listen and to learn from others on our walk. My name is. Paul Wong and I will be your host, but also a fellow traveler. I'm glad that you're able to join me today on our walk together. Hi everyone. Welcome to our walk together. Glad you're here today. We're going to talk today a little bit about light and darkness. Because you know, this time of year, it's getting kind of dark. We're recording this in the in the late autumn and it's getting dark very early in the evening, and we're actually spending more time with darkness outside than it than we are with light. So I thought, you know a little bit about darkness and light. Might be something we could think about today. You know, personally, I much rather would have it light and warm and all those kinds of things, but that's just not what this season is all about. You know, I think sometimes we all. Sit in darkness or feel like we're in darkness and feel like nothing is going right. Everything in our lives is going wrong. Nothing seems to be working out right. Nothing seems to be making sense. Nothing seems to be actually coming together the way we want it to come together, and this tends to be a period of darkness and it's pretty uncomfortable for us as we as we go through our days not knowing. And having just having that that feeling, I guess is the best way to say it of of darkness. One of my favorite Saints is Saint John of the Cross, and so John of the cross is pretty much known by most people for his his writings called The Dark Knight of the Soul and his concept of that and what that's all about. And you know, Saint John of the Cross was a Carmelite. It was in the 15th. In the 1500s, I I can't remember exactly what what date it was, but he was in the. 1500s. So Carmelite priest and he met Saint Teresa of Avila shortly after he became a priest. Both of them were Carmelites and they they were talking and Teresa was trying to to reform her order. To come back to some of the more primitive, I guess ways of the order and John of the cross was there and he was agreed with her, and he vowed himself. To live. The primitive rule of the Carmelites and you need to try to work with with Saint Teresa of Avila and also within his own community to restore some of that original feelings. The original practices of the Carmelites. Well, you can can quite understand. John worked for reform and he came to experience the the price of working for reform. He faced increasing opposition. He created misunderstanding. He he experienced prosecution, persecution and imprisonment during the during the time of the Inquisition, he. He he was considered to be a, if not a heretic, at least a troublemaker, and so he was. He was imprisoned in in a dark cell for a very long time and month after month after month he sat in that dark cell. And in that experience of being in that dark cell being all alone. He came to. What the the the dying of Jesus was all about. He came to know that darkness. That Jesus could have experienced, and when he died. In that that. Darkness that that surrounded that even we you know, we hear at the time of the crucifixion we hear in the in the scriptures that the whole world got dark. When Jesus died. It's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful illusion and a wonderful wonderful thing to think about. But. John came to call that the dark night of the soul, that times when it nothing. Was really working. But in that there was a paradox, because in the darkness in that dark night of the soul. He actually began to come closer and closer to God and he he he actually came to life. The darkness became a purification. A time to prepare him for the the glory and the ecstasy of the Union with God. Small quote here from from John of the Cross and his in his writings on the dark night of the soul and what he says is this is a little bit wordy, but it's the way he would have written and how it's translated and he writes. Although this happy night brings darkness to the spirit. It does so only to give it light in everything. And that although it humbles and makes it miserable, it does so only to exalt and to raise it up. And although it impoverishes. It it it excuse me. Although it impoverishes it, it empties it of all natural affection and attachment. It does so only that it may be able to stretch forward. And it goes on. And eventually that stretching forward is to become attached and becoming becoming. I'm attached to God in. A very, very special way. There are times when we all. Face that kind of darkness. You know, as I said earlier, nothing's right. Everything is wrong. We try to reject it. No one seems to understand us. No one. Nothing has seemed to be working just right. We have trouble praying. We have, you know, all kinds of of issues around around our, our faith and around our lives. Which. Can be can. Be very dark. But it's important also for us to remember. That the light does eventually come. Eventually there's light, you know, even even in the words of Jesus, Jesus get talked about the parable. You talked about light and you talked about it. You know that that we are. And the light of the world. And you can't hide that kind of light. You know, once it's there, it's there and you can't hide it. It's always going to be there, you know, it's it's kind of interesting to me. Whole experience of light and darkness and things like that is, you know, amongst some of the Native American folks, a a young man, when he's about to become a man, is sent off on on what's called a vision quest. And there's various forms that that takes in various ways that it happens, but. Basically what it is, it's an. It's a time when the person goes all by himself. There's no one else with him. He's all alone and. The goal is to experience vision. To somehow or other make contact with the spiritual world. That can help give meaning and give direction to that young person's life, and it's a pretty scary thing, I would think I I mean, I spent a lot of times in the woods and I'm not real comfortable being there all by myself. And they could have been there for several days and with nobody around. Not no, not even the promise that somebody was coming back to get them. But the the point is that. They were able to eventually experience that connection with spiritual reality, which could lead them to know what it was that they were supposed to do. Very much like a dark night of the soul. Even. Even when when I think about it, even brother Francis. When he was near the end of his life, he experienced quite a bit of darkness, not only in the caves that he would go to to pray. But also physically, you know it's it's known very well that when Francis was near the end of his life for various under reasons, he he had a disease where he was losing his sight. He couldn't see. He was in darkness and light actually hurt his eyes. When he would try to look around. And in their darkness, Francis was able to then. Make an even greater experience of the Jesus in his life. To the point where he received what we call the stigmata, and drew even closer and closer and closer to Jesus because he was in darkness. But Jesus was the light, the light of his life. And we all look for that light. We all look for that light to come into our lives, especially when things are not going well and it never seems like it's going to come, but it does. We're going to very. Soon be in the season of Advent and Advent is. All about light and all about dark. We hear during the whole course of the season of Advent, about about the darkness. That's around it. How you know, we we struggle in the darkness and, you know, we look for the light and the light is not coming. And and we we we learn. You know if when we listen to those readings throughout Advent that you know. We're kind of in darkness and we're looking for something until the name until the day comes of Christmas. And on Christmas, everything is light. It's all light because Jesus, the light of the world has come into the world, God himself. Has become one of us. And that gives us light that gives us a lot of. Hope that you know, even in our darkness, eventually God shines through. I just want to find a little. Thought is that you know when you think when I think about the name that I gave to this podcast, our walk together. Very, very intentionally done that way because you know, I wanted to give the emphasis that, you know, we we are all walking on this path. We all walk together and. You know.
When you think.
About that in in terms of light and darkness. Walking in the dark can be pretty uncertain. It can be pretty scary. We stumble over things when we're in the dark, we stumble and fall, we lose our way out of the path and and so on and so forth. But it's much nicer. Much easier. And much more fulfilling. If we have someone walk through that darkness with us. As someone who is going to then be able to share in the light and the celebration of that light. So maybe we. Could think about some of those, those things about what? What is the meaning of light and darkness for us. Are we in darkness today? Is our spiritual life in darkness? Do we need to do something to get ourselves to understand that sometimes that's necessary? It's necessary to be in that darkness for a while, not forever. But to be in that darkness, where we can come to have no other distractions. But bringing our lives closer and closer to God. Thank you for being with me today. Well, the music means that our time together is at an end. I would like to thank you for walking with me today. It's been a great blessing. All of the information about the podcast is available on the website ourwalktogether.com. Please invite your friends to also listen. You are the best advertise. And so until we meet again, May the Lord bless you and keep thee be the Lord. Let us face shine on you and be grateful. Safest to you.
May the Lord.
Look upon you kindly and give you his peace.