MY PATH

It is a while since I wrote here. Since I last wrote, my path has been tortuous. Many times I have fallen off it. Many times doubted. Sometimes thenknowledge that we have within us is too hard to hold onto. In the face of deep suffering, and the disteactions of other people’s very different ideas of how we should be or how we should think, we get lost. Many people have so much to say. But they are not me. Many people think they can judge my soul. But they are not in me. Hurts, pains, judgements, can all thrown off our path.

But then…..we are by some miracle, brought sharply back to it. For me, I still live in a world of darkness, and the only thing is real to me is darkness. It is permanent. I will never see light again. All that I can think of is the darkness that covered the whole land as Jesus died. At that point the veil of the Temple was rent in two. Isn’t it strange how at the times of deepest darkness we are brought closer to eternity? That eternuty shines through as the veil in our souls is rent. We have our own crucufixions, but each crucifixion brings us closer to eternity. It is, for me, the only light that shines into my dark world.

Yes, I have fallen off my path, many times, of recent weeks. But once again I come back to St. John of the Cross and the Dark Night of the Soul. And I know the truth of it. And I know also that the darkness glows. Once again, I set off on my path. My Blind Wilderness awaits me.

DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

Today the battle really was too great
I died in grief’s great arms in my dark night
Upon my soul was sorrow’s deadly weight
I knew that I had given up the fight
I sank into oblivion in the dark
No one could reach me there, and nor I them
And in that vacuum knew the truth so stark,
That never would there be a how or when,
Alone in that great pit that took me in
And gave me comfort of the strangest kind
I knew that in this life I’d never win,
True peace and rest I’d not in this world find,
So now my weary body do I hold
Waiting for the land that offers true gold