Do you ever find yourself in a period of darkness? Your soul feels heavy, but you cannot pinpoint the reason. All seems to be well on the outside...
For once, I am pondering darkness when I actually don't feel like I'm in a season of darkness. I've felt light lately. Encouraged. Joyful. Free.
I've really been enjoying the book Clinging: The Experience of Prayer by Emilie Griffin that Tara Leigh lent me. And it's the chapter on "Darkness" that's been most helpful to read when I don't feel like I'm in a dark place right now. It's one experience to reach for help when your mind is clouded and desperate. It's quite another to read it from a place of peace, more in preparation and protection for what might come. I'm not being negative to believe that the darkness will come again. It's a part of life.
"I remember clearly (and any day it might come again) the terrible reluctance to start praying on the chance that the first thing I would find is a wall. And the wall, I knew, would not be a wall at which I was to stop, but one I was expected to walk through.
And when one asks the Lord in prayer about the wall, asking Him to take the wall away, the answer is simply that the wall exists in order for us to walk through it.
But the remarkable thing is that we do. We walk into and through the wall in a way that is beyond comprehension. This impossible thing that is quite beyond us and that we nevertheless are able to do shows us both an inevitability and an incomprehensible overturning of the systematic order of things. It's the what-we-can't-do-under-any-circumstances that is nevertheless to be done.
Darkness comes to deepen our prayer and to strengthen us. But God does this not all at once and not by seeming to. This experience is different from any other, akin to pain but not like pain because it has no sharp edges. It is the bleakness of grief without any object of grief. No one has died, nothing is lost to us, except perhaps a vision we once had and were clinging to, instead of God himself." ~ Clinging: The Experience of Prayer, pp. 36-37
What do you think of this?
I'm puttering through this book at a snail's pace, because I keep coming across paragraphs, sentences, or phrases that halt me, like the one above. I could think for days on a portion of a single page, such as, "the wall exists in order for us to walk through it." Those are the best kinds of books, aren't they? I'll keep plowing through it...
5 comments:
hmmm. this is good. post more. think i'm in a bit of darkness, so this was well timed. i liked the quote about having a wall to walk through. good stuff.
I, too, like the imagery of the wall and could think on/unpack that one for days! :)
The idea of "the bleakness of grief without any object of grief" also resonates with me. We've all been there before, and we'll all be there again sometime. It's interesting to contemplate darkness when you're outside it instead of in the midst of it. That's something that, while we shouldn't do it too much, is probably something we don't do enough. Great post.
By the way...
I realized I never got back to you on the Ben & Jerry's thing. We had a great time, and would highly recommend that you & Steven go if you'll be in the area! The factory is situated on a beautiful little piece of land, nestled in the mountains. The tour itself is short--only about 30 minutes, including a free sample at the end. There's not a whole lot to it, but we enjoyed seeing the cows outside and visiting the "Flavor Graveyard," as well as learning more about a really fantastic company that has been able to strike the rare mix of creating a quality product and doing so with a strong social/environmental commitment! (How's that for a plug? :)
i think i would like reading this. i need to chew on it more. but i love love your picture at the beginning and the quote. that kind of says it all but in a beautiful way.
I really like that quote in the plaque. Touches me this day.
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