A Lighter Side to Darkness

A few weeks ago, I deactivated my facebook.

I don't really know what compelled me to this sudden alteration in my life, seeing as how the facebook application on my phone consumes most of my time.

But maybe that was why.

Either way,

I've been reading a lot of books to fill up my time.

And no, not the Twilight series. Not the junky books that require no actual thought (sorry, Twilight fans, but you gotta admit: a book that revolves around a faint-faced vampire lover doesn't have much substance). Not the books where they can make a movie out of it or someone can give you a summary and then you know basically all you need to. Not one of those books where you don't really have to read it carefully to understand it.

But in my search for the narrow gate, I've found myself engaged in books that make me stop and think.

About my life.

About my past.

"Dark Night of the Soul" was a concept explored by St. John of the Cross (homeboy's a Spanish priest back in the ...1500s?). I will attempt to explain to you, but just as a word of caution: but my words fall short. As St. John said in relation to this journey, "for only he that passes this way can understand it, and even he cannot describe it." Well said, sir.

Essentially, it's the idea that the soul inside us must pass through many trials, a period of darkness that is both "spiritual and temporal" in order to reach "a perfect union of the love of God, as far as is possible in this life."

But it's not just that a person goes through hard times.

It's this intense anxiety.

A feeling of loneliness in which you are isolated from everything, everyone...and feel like you're even detached from God. It's a spiritual desert; you are so incredibly thirsty for Living Water and find no oasis, you knock and the door doesn't seem to budge. You call upon God to save you, and you still feel like you're drowning.

Friends, family... it seems as if everything fails to console you.

This isn't for the new to faith, mind you.

It's for the ones who have been growing in faith and it seems like they've dropped the ball somehow. As if their spiritual life has hit a certain wall they can't push past.

Maybe the old ways that used to get us close to God (worship, daily Bible readings) no longer suffice. Maybe your relationship with him has hit its lowest point ever, and all you want is God to sweep you off your feet so you can be in love with him again...or maybe you just want to know he's real and still there.

But instead of a sign, you're left feeling angry and alone.

At this point, some people refuse to continue into the night. They're scared. Some just turn around and refuse to deal with the pain, others try to find another route and end up at a dead end or back at the beginning of their frustration.

Sometimes people don't even realize they're going through it.

And there's the few that choose to go into the darkness, trusting God's purpose for a more perfect union with him in the end.

Place me in all of the above.

For the soul to be wholly detached from everything, and even feel isolation from God,

for the soul to be in complete darkness,

all to reach this "Divine light of the perfect union of love of God."

...interesting concept, isn't it?

I'm still wrestling with this idea, and I'm happy to say it's rocking my world.

But like St. John said, it's pretty much impossible to describe.

It's one of those books you just have to read to understand.

Glorifying the Poor.

(Something that the Africa team talked about on the trip. It's nice to know we're not the only ones who see this.)

There's a tendency among the wealthy to glorify the poor.

This happens when leaving the ivory hotel to walk among the masses for an afternoon. The rich decree, "These Guatemalans, they're just so... just so happy and content, even though they have nothing." The intrinsic assumption is that those who want for everything don't want anything.

As it turns out, a band of six-year-olds running in the streets with their kites made out of string and a discarded plastic bag, or playing a rousing game of kick-the-avocado because they lack a can, are indeed having a good time. Most six-year-olds are happy. It's how six-year-olds are. They don't understand their muscles aren't growing because they have no protein in their diet. They don't understand that 20 years from now, their education will have failed them and they won't be gainfully employed. They don't understand that Horatio Alger's stories won't come true, no matter how hard they work. But for now, the score is 2-1, and there's an avocado waiting to be enthusiastically kicked down the street.

As it turns out, the new mother, 16-years-old, is happy. It's how new mothers are. She doesn't yet know that nursing her baby will rob her body of calcium, and soon her teeth will fall out. She doesn't fear losing her baby to chronic diarrhea nor fear the possibility that her baby will go deaf from untreated meningitis. She accepts them as a natural risk of starting a family. Having lost a sister or cousin under similar circumstances, she accepts them not as obscure theory like being hit by lightning, but as a genuine risk to her family. Having accepted that risk, she moves on with life and smiles at her baby.

As it turns out, the day laborer in the field is not happy. He is hundreds of miles from home, moving every few weeks, following the coffee harvest, the cardamom planting, or whatever he can find. He sleeps on the hard-packed ground with a wool blanket he carries with him. For shelter, he has what his employer provides, sometimes a tin roof, sometimes an actual building, sometimes nothing at all. He was in the fields, swinging his machete before the sun was over the horizon, and he'll make his dinner in the dark on a fire over a small aluminum plate that he also carries with him. He'll go to bed tired, cold, a little hungry, unhappy, and invisible.

There's a darker underbelly to poverty. It doesn't show up in the happy glossy aid magazines, it doesn't show up on the tour schedule, it doesn't make the news, you can't see it from the car, and it isn't glorious.

In some cases, families of low economic means are quite rich in terms of community, family values and work ethic. Poverty and struggle can be common enemies that unite a family. It's tough to stay angry with three of your siblings when you'll share a bed with them that night.

Given the opportunity, a poor Guatemalan would gladly give up their status as glorious poor for the chance to be glamorously rich. The glamorous rich that have given up their wealth to become gloriously poor are so rare their biographies are written and they are nominated for sainthood. To have started life at the bottom of the economic ladder and not become a malcontent is certainly commendable, but it is not glorious.

Poverty, the invisible sort, will never be solved until we are willing to see it.

Thanks Wayne. Taken from: http://www.asgreenasitgets.org/

Speak To Me.

I am your servant, and I am listening

Speak to me, Lord, speak to me.

I need your wisdom, your truth and comfort

Speak to me, Lord, speak to me.

Speak to me, speak to me.

Through your Word,

Through your Spirit

SPEAK YOUR WORDS OF LIFE

Speak to me, speak to me.

I am listening,

I am waiting,

SPEAK TO ME.

I am your servant, and I am listening,

Speak to me, Lord, speak to me.

My heart is silent, my soul is longing,

Speak to me, Lord, speak to me.