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Dark Nights of the Soul






  Religion tends to sentimentalize the light and demonize the darkness. If you turn to spirituality to find only a positive and wholesome attitude, you are using spirituality to avoid life’s dark beauty. Religion easily becomes a defense and avoidance. Of course, this is not the real purpose of religion, and the religious traditions of the world, full of beautifully stated wisdom, are your best source of guidance in the dark.





  Depression is a mood you endure and try to get through, while a dark night of the soul is a process in which your coarse soul is refined and your intelligence is deepened.





  In many segments of culture today, having a lively intellectual life is considered “nerdy.” It’s “cool” not to know anything about history and not to have a thought in your head. The meaning of life is often reduced to cruising with the popular culture. It doesn’t take a course in psychoanalysis to glimpse severe anxiety behind this posture of know-nothingness. If you had ideas and took yourself seriously, you would have to be constantly awake, educating yourself, and getting involved in your community. It’s safer to hide out in a pretense of ignorance. For that is what “cool” mindedness is, a way to sleep through life and not feel the sting and challenge of being engaged.





  One of the most striking weaknesses of television is its lack of wit. Generally you have to go to independent films and out-of-the-way literature to find brilliant, imaginative alternatives to formulaic storytelling and low-brow entertainment. Yet the sentimentality and anti-intellectualism that has come to be expected in television educates, or “de-educates”, masses of people on a daily basis.





  In sickness, the soul comes into the foreground. It asks for attention. If its wounds are addressed, then, perhaps, the physical manifestations will no longer be necessary. But care of the soul is not a surface activity; nor is it easy. It demands that you fully confront yourself and decide to live fully rather than half-heartedly. It asks that you learn to love with your whole heart and get over any self-pity or cynicism that may still remain in your heart. It asks that you transcend yourself in genuine concern for others and in a feeling of community that knows no boundaries. This is not an easy task, but it is the only way, finally, to health.





  As you age, you sink more into the earthiness of your identity. You don’t have to understand this deep level of your existence, but you do have to trust it. You may discover over time that the deep self has a wisdom that you could never muster on the surface. It seems to take in experience and ruminate on it even as you go about your business. Insights arrive from that deep place, and you can trust it to offer help in making decisions.





   Something highly spiritual in you may wish for wondrous success, but the deep soul longs for ordinary connection and engagement. It wants friendship, family and community. It longs for the simple pleasures, and from its perspective, the idea of justifying your existence is a dangerous distraction. Self-justification is an image, a narrative and a fantasy that gets a hold of you. The torment from such a preoccupation qualifies as a genuine dark night of the soul. It is beyond reason and can’t be argued away. People get attached to the idea and don’t want it taken from them. Evidently, it has something to give them, but that gift may be hidden for years before the torture diminishes and a satisfying way of life shows itself.







  What is mediocrity in life? It is the failure to let the inner brilliance shine. The Latin word ‘scintilla’ means the spark that lives at the heart of a person. When that inner genius shows itself in personality, way of life, values and expression, mediocrity disappears. It is the cloud that prevents the spark from being seen. Mediocrity is the attitude of “do only what is necessary and sufficient,” the feeling of not having an essence worth showing. It involves giving up on the possibility of living an outstanding life.







Saint John of the Cross