In the mid-fourteenth century an anonymous author wrote the now classic essay, The Cloud of Unknowing. In it he writes: “there is at the start but a darkness; there is, as it were, a cloud of unknowing. Be prepared, therefore, to remain in this darkness as long as must be…For if you are ever to feel…or to see [your true self], it will necessarily be within this cloud and within this darkness.”
I have entered the cloud many times, and I have even been beneath the cloud to the place of knowing. Unfortunately for me each time I descend (or more properly, ascend) through the cloud, my laziness or carelessness catapults me back through the cloud into the temporal pleasure of everyday life. Here I run and rush, not quite so concerned with the mysticism of holding hands with God but seeking more after survival and progress in worldly matters.
Of course even in writing about the author’s wonderful insights I show my inability to comprehend even the basic framework he has laid out. I have read Merton’s elaborations and so many others commentaries on this dark night of the soul. But it all seems to fall short.
I seem to find myself in the dark night after surrendering to my God, giving up all hope of stumbling upon or creating answers I need to ensure my basic, bottom-line, survival. Generally I don’t even sense the cloud(s) until I am willing to give up and let go of everything – my possessions, my health, my relationships, my job, my affiliations, and whatever else I have relied upon to fill the night. I’ve got to leave my flashlight and sleeping bag behind. No provisions, just empty-handed.
I enter the cloud longing for the warmth of God’s love and healing. I want to receive some over-the-top gift of insight and solution. I want to pass through the clouds into the realm below where God waits. I truly want to leave this world to sit in the next. But nothing happens. It’s dark, cold and quiet. God’s not in the cloud. Or maybe He is. But He lets me sit. Quiet and alone. Sad and in need. Actually I sometimes seem to wander for days longing for more but getting less.
Truly it is a Dark Night of the Soul.
I think of Psalm 42. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
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And yet here I sit. God, where are you? Hello? I want to enter in and sit down with you. I need to talk with You. I Know You’re here. And yet repeatedly I hear Your silence: “Sit. Be still, and know that I am God.”
I begin to realize what a privilege it is to exist in the dark night. I’m not getting what I want, or what I came for, but I’m getting what He gives.
I just finished reading a book on the reformation (How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World, Stephen J. Nichols) and the dogma of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli impressed me anew about how everything is controlled and ordered by a Living God. Indeed everything is His creation and plan.
That means He created not only light and warmth, but darkness and cold. He created silence itself. And the void that He subsequently filled in our Universe. It has been said that man is the only creature God has enabled to cry and produce flowing, emotion-fed tears. God created pleasure and pain. And, the Dark Night of the Soul…
<sigh>
God, I’m waiting…. It’s dark.