Dark Nights, Extraordinary Grace, and Humility

I have just completed one of my silent meditation retreats.  I used to take four days, two times a year, for these retreats.  I am not sure how it happened but in recent years they've been more sporadic and often shorter.  This time I took three days.

For many years I would choose a book around a theme I intended to explore in my meditations and read it in the few days before I began my retreat.  Occasionally, I would finish it on the first day of the retreat.  About 10 days before I started this withdrawal for reflection, I got a message about Choice Point, a book that I first drafted in 1997 and which I continued to revise until about 2000.  I hadn't read it since about 2009, so revisiting it seemed in order.  While I didn't have time to read the book prior to my retreat, I did bring it with me and I read about half of it in bits and pieces over the three days.

When I last read the book in 2009, I recognized that it was badly dated, and that was even more apparent this time.  However, the thing that I noticed most was what I can only describe as my arrogance in tone.  I can assure you that was not my intention.  In the mid- to late-1990s, my life worked extraordinarily well spiritually, and I just assumed that was "normal."  The years in between have demonstrated to me that my experience was not in any way "normal," but instead was extraordinary grace.  My failure to recognize that was arrogant.

Choice Point is a guide to listening for our inner voice or divine voice or whatever it is that guides us on a spiritual path.  For 8-9 years in the 1990s,  my inner guidance system worked extremely well. All I had to do was ask a question, and the answer was there.  I moved across the country, worked globally, designed a new home, and wrote several books on that guidance.  So, it should not be surprising that the book I wrote about that intention process carried a "just do it!" attitude, implying that if we express the intention, the communication will just flow.

Sometime, and I can't really say precisely when it was, I stopped being able to get that guidance.  I struggled to get anything.  I would like to say that as the regularity of my meditation time waned that my guidance did as well because, if that were the case, fixing the problem would be easy.  I'd just have to start meditating regularly again.  I actually think just the opposite was the case.  I think my failure to get guidance precipitated my willingness to meditate less frequently.

Several saints from the Roman Catholic tradition have written about their inability to receive guidance after rich periods of regular communication with the divine.*  A book released after her death revealed that Mother Teresa had struggled for decades with the inability to communicate directly, as she had done quite regularly in her younger years.  The most common term for that absence of communication is "the dark night of the soul," and the period of non-communication--often for the rest of life--usually follows a rich period of dialogue with the divine.  While I haven't experienced the depression that many described, I have keenly felt the lack of communication which characterizes the "dark night of the soul."

My just-completed three days of sitting continued the lack of communication.  Even exercises that I've used to jump-start the flow failed me repeatedly.  So, I mostly sat.  Occasionally, I picked up Choice Point to read a chapter.  Taking time from the fast-paced life I find myself living for personal reflection is reward in and of itself, but I am definitely not stepping out with the feeling of personal enlightenment that I used to experience.

I have learned that the 8-9 years of constant dialogue with the divine that I used to experience as "normal" was instead extraordinary grace.  The communication vacuum, which has dominated my life for 15 years, has taught me what a gift I received for the preceding years.  If I revisit Choice Point again for rewrite, it will be from true humility as I will bring the understanding of what a gift it was.


*I believe this is true of other traditions as well, but I am less well read on them.

Rewriting Our Stories

Our minds play tricks on us, and the really tricky thing is they can totally transform for either good or bad how we experience life. Events in our lives are by and large neutral. They only become positive or negative because of what our minds tell us.

For instance, there are number if stories about people who were distressed because they missed a plane only to later learn that the plane had crashed.

Or there is the story about the man walking down the street, who was knocked over by a skateboarder, only see a heavy flower pot land on the sidewalk where he would have been if he'd kept walking.

If we are to experience everything as a gift, I believe it is essential that we become conscious of our stories and then rewrite them so that they help us see the gift.

This morning I cheerfully headed out for work, and I was hardly out the door before I began encountering delays. When I got to the corner where I would normally enter the Metro, the entry was closed. I was directed to a different entry.

I was just inside the alternative entry, when I saw my train leaving the station. When I made it to the platform, there were no times for upcoming train departures. A disabled train had blocked the tracks, and trains were bottlenecked from coming into the city. The missed train was the last for a while.  A long delay ensued, thereby assuring that I will miss my first meeting.

I finally entered a train that was packed like sardines. When I was almost to the station where I would change trains, the driver pulled in the station and said, "This train is out of service." So, everyone on the packed train offloaded.

At this point, I decided to walk a long block to another line where I would catch the train I would have changed to if my train had made it to the expected change point. It seems that was not an original thought. Hundreds of others joined me in the race to the other line, pushing and shoving all the way.

I allowed myself only a moment's pity before asking, "What's the gift? What's the gift?" Then I laughed out loud. I'd been struggling to fit exercise into my schedule thus week. Each of my delays had added more walking or escalators to climb. Was this a serious workout? Of course not. But it did get my heart rate up for a bit. By choosing to see all the delays as a gift, I started the day with a smile on my face and grace in my heart.

I was proud of myself for being awake enough to notice and to rewrite my story. That is a powerful act, choosing how to experience life without regard to circumstances.

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