Journey into the Dark Night of the Soul

Oh night thou was my guide

of night more loving than the rising sun

Oh night that joined the lover

to the beloved one

transforming each of them

into the other ...

~St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul 

Have you ever wandered in a rose garden ... and contemplated the rose with its thorns?  For some, the beauty of the rose is unmatched.  As a child I remember the glorious rose bush growing by the front porch.  Every mother's day, my mother cut one of them for each of the two of us and we wore them to church to honor our mothers.   As I consider my own journey of motherhood, it is much like that rose with its thorns, such incredible, deep rose-like beauty it takes my breath away and yet such sudden pricks of the thorns along the way of fear, anger, emptiness ... waiting for a phone call or a text when it has been too long ... letting go.  It simply IS the journey of deep love.  Perhaps we cannot have one without the other in this life we live. 

Remember Mary, mother of Jesus.  Ahhh, Mary ... the deep, exquisite piercing of the thorn in your heart ... tears falling into the dark night ... did you know a simple "yes" would lead you here?

Draw closer and ever closer to the desolation of Christ in the Garden and on the Cross.  "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?," Jesus cries out and my heart shatters.  I find myself being drawn into the depths of Presence, into a place where the rose and the thorn reside together, a beautiful coupling, union with the God who never abandons even if we feel it is so, stillness descends and silence deafens, finding a space of desolation and dark night "remembering." 

I invite you to engage in the way of an adapted "audio/lectio divina" with a youtube video of Loreena Mckennitt's Dark Night of the Soul.

The lyrics of this beautiful song are taken from the mystical writings of the Spanish Carmelite friar, Saint John of the Cross.   Where else would a mystic turn to enter fully into the Presence of Mystery and Darkness of Good Friday?

Take the link to view the images and the words as the music fills the space around you ... Is there an image, word, phrase or melodic line in the music that draws your attention?    Pause for a few moments to let it resonate in your soul ...

If you feel drawn to listen again, just close your eyes and listen.  Allow the music and the words to fill you and draw you deeper inward.  Where are you drawn as this Dark Night of the Soul wraps itself around your soul? 

If you feel drawn to reflection, how is your experience speaking into your life right now?  Is there an invitation here for you?  

If you feel drawn to listen a third time ... How do sense that you will respond to this invitation ... to your life? 

Before moving on ... as the music comes to a close, allow everything ... the images, the words and the music ... to fade into silence ... allow your soul to fade into silence ... rest ... until you sense it is time to move on. 

May you be strengthened in your inner being by this time of contemplation on the Dark Night of the Soul.  May John of the Cross encourage you to trust in the Holy One who is always with you ... even in those moments when you feel you have been abandoned.

Oh night thou was my guide ... 

of night more loving than the rising sun ... 

Oh night that joined the lover .... 

to the beloved one ... 

transforming each of them ... 

into the other.

May you rest deeply within the Presence and allow yourself to be enveloped by Mystery and melancholy as the Dark Night sings in your soul.

Amen.  

The Journey to Jerusalem ...

Lent has been a L...O...N...G journey this year.  I've been offering a weekly Labyrinth Walk through Lent at Mission Bend United Methodist Church in Houston.   It was a Lenten Spiritual Discipline for me.  The Labyrinth was open from 1:00 pm to 8:00 pm ...

On Holy Tuesday I created an interactive prayer walking experience which featured the Labyrinth. Hear this prayer ... Jesus, come join us in our journey as we seek your will for this community in this environment. Teach us to love each other as you love us, to give ourselves as you give yourself that the kingdom of God might be made present to all. Amen.  I created in the spirit of this prayer which I learned as an active member of the Kairos Prison Ministry International community.

I hoped that people would find this sense of taking the journey with Jesus as they walked.  In this case we walk with Jesus on the path leading to the cross.  Although there is no way to get a real sense of the physical journey we took, I share it with you here ... 

A JOURNEY OF PRAYER AND REFLECTION

 

Following Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he continued to teach, preach, and heal.  The disciples prepared the Passover meal, as they were directed.  Before that … Jesus sat and contemplated the city of Jerusalem.   The city would soon be destroyed.  Jesus was grieving because Jerusalem had not responded to his declaration of the kingdom and God’s work of salvation in the city.  For this reason, Jesus begins holy week in pain and grief as he prays and laments. 

To continue you have to take the small "read more" under the photo

Remember who you are: An Ash Wednesday Meditation

When I was younger, I would pull out a map when I needed to go somewhere.  First, I looked for where I was.  Then I would look for where I wanted to be.  Then I would map out my route.  Then a few years later ... I found mapquest.  Then I had to know where I was by address and the address where I wanted to be and mapquest mapped out my journey for me.  Well, just a few months ago I got a GPS ... a global positioning system.  I still have to know where I am and where I want to be, but the lovely GPS lady tells me where I am and tell me every move to make on my way to where I want to be!  Well, traveling from one place to another has gotten a whole lot easier ... BUT ... you still need to know where you start in order to get where you are going.

As we begin our journey through the season of lent, we orient ourselves on Ash Wednesday. 
Who are we?  We are dust … we are nothing ... but dust! 

Perhaps dust has no value in the eyes of the world.   In the world, your value is measured by what you do, how much you produce, how beautiful you are, what kind of car you drive or what kind of house you live in, how smart you are … OR how smart your kids are!  This is not the kind of value I am talking about …This is value the way the world sees it … 

In Matthew 6:6 Jesus says, "whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

Regarding our spiritual life, Jesus tells us it is what you don’t see that is valuable … God sees “in secret” God sees what no one else sees … God sees who you really are … God loves you in spite of that … God loves you because of that … God sees the man or the woman that you were created to be from the dust … and in God’s eyes, even the dust has value … Because the dust has value … you have value!

The problem comes when we buy into the world’s view of value and we put a relative value on people, including ourselves.  We fall short when we fail to value people in the way God values people … we fall short when we begin to see people as commodities to be used and abused for our own good.   When we fail to value people the way God values people we fail to value God … this is when we tumble into sin … only by spending time with God in the secret can we begin to see what God sees, to value what God values and only by spending time with God in the secret can we come to love God above all other things and to love others as we love ourselves.  Only by spending time with God in the secret can we begin to see what sin truly is and how it destroys our lives and the lives of others.  

And the good news is that when we seek God’s forgiveness in Christ … we are forgiven.   And we begin again.  There is something very cyclical about the spiritual life … we live in an almost never-ending cycle of endings and beginnings. Today is Ash Wednesday.  It is a beginning … the beginning of Lent … a time of self-reflection and spiritual formation.

Are you ready to take your Lenten journey?  Well, pick up a map ... we need to know where are we!

I am dust and to dust I will return.

Dear ones ... remember who you are …  you are dust, and to dust you will return ... Amen.