Bicycling and The Dark Night of the Soul

I think it's cool when you get one of those mornings where it's almost foggy out but not quite there but the air is so wet you can almost taste it when you breathe it in. This morning was one of those mornings and as I was riding my bike to school I noticed that the hair on my arms was actually getting wet as I rode.

It's so nice having it finally warm up. This winter has been so long and so cold that I got to the point where I no longer expected it to be warm outside. It's like my mind erased the folder titled "t-shirt weather." Now it is warming up and I can step outside in a short sleeve shirt without being assaulted by the bitter cold wind stealing the breathe from my lungs. The funny thing is that even though it's getting warm now, I still brace myself everytime I open the door because in the back of my mind I'm expecting it to be 25 degrees outside; I can almost feel the cold air pushing against me as I step outside.

But then I walk out the door and nothing happens. There's no cold wind. Even better, instead of that bitter wind hitting me in the face I actually feel warm. For the first time in months I can be warm again without sitting in front of the heating vent.

I'm noticing that the spiritual journey works a lot like the seasons. I go through Springs and Summers where I bask in the warmth of God's presence. I see a dead, brown world turn green and fill with the life of God's presence. These times are great, there's nothing better than basking in God's presence. But innevitably winter comes. St. John of the Cross called this winter "the dark night of the soul."

For some reason God, in His infinite mercy, grace, and wisdom, retracts His presence from us from time to time. Sometimes He does this for a few weeks, sometimes for months similar to the winter season. I hear that sometimes this dark night can last for years.

The challenge of our spiritual winter is that we keep our sense of expectancy for God to act in His world. Just like I lost my expectancy that it would ever get warm again this winter and then when it did get warm I had a hard time feeling it, we can lose our sense of expectancy that God will ever act again. As God's presence is withheld from us, we begin to question whether He was ever there in the first place. We start to ask ourselves if we were diluded and had only been fooling ourselves when we felt God's presence in the past and thought we saw Him at work in our lives and the world around us.

I am just coming into the Spring after a Winter where I did not feel God's presence. In the last few weeks He has been shining His light into the darkness of my soul. I don't know exactly what I was supposed to learn from this. I suppose it has something to do with my ability to be a faithful servant while my master is in a distant land. But what I do know is that I have been amazed at the way I had lost my sense of expectancy. I had pretty much stopped looking for God to act in His world.

But anyway, Spring is here. Life is coming back into the world and things are getting busy again. The good thing about the seasons is that they are always passing. Enjoy and embrace the times of warmth and life and don't lose hope when it gets cold and everything dies. Spring is always coming.

Where William Carlos Williams Meets Zoey the Dog

So much depends
upon

A small black
Dog

Sitting next to
Me

Warming up our
Chair

IDS Blah!

I've been hittin' some hard travelin'
I thought you knowed
I've been hittin' some hard travelin'
Way down the road...

I don't think I've ever hit some hard travelin' myself. But I wonder sometimes. Maybe I have? Have I hit some hard travelin' and out of a false sense of humility I refuse to acknowledge it? Downplay it as normal travelin'?

All I know is I'm sick and tired of sitting through IDS lectures. Maybe it's small of me to bitch about it when people are starving all around the world while I sit here dicking around on the internet?

Let's all be thankful for our thrownness in this crazy world. Historicity: Making me feel better about not being content in my cushy circumstances since way before Heideggar ever articulated it!