[Spiritual path]
Dear Fr Donagh,
…. I've been struggling in monastic life for almost half of my life, and while it becomes easier in some respects it become more difficult in others. It became clear to me recently that the ways in which it has become easier are in matters of little importance, while the ways in which it has become more difficult are in matters of central importance – such as prayer and contemplation. I struggle daily with prayer, but it seems to me that my struggle is becoming less and less intense as the years go by. But besides that, I'm much less clear in my mind about the whole thing. I don’t feel close to God, I feel like someone who has become weary of calling out to God. I think this must be a spiritual crisis. I have talked with two spiritual directors about this, and both have urged me just to keep going, saying that God is testing me, and that I have to learn perseverance. But I feel I'm in a rut and that I need a fresh start – some new way of going about it, some new understanding of the spiritual life…. Can you suggest anything that might help me? Sr. C.
Dear Sr C.,
Thank you for your letter. As you see, I omitted much of it here; other readers will not need to know the details, but they will get the gist of the question.
It matters how we name things. When you call it a ‘rut’ you are abandoning hope in it. How different it sounds if you call it a ‘path’….
For someone seeking God, it is good to be in a spiritual crisis. People whose lives are running in a rut would do anything to avoid a crisis, because they don’t want to change anything. If you were in a rut you wouldn’t be struggling with prayer and you wouldn’t be bothered about anything. So why call it a rut? It deserves to be called a path – a difficult path indeed, but what can we expect? Every spiritual path is difficult. The difficulties are not great at the beginning; a bit of youthful energy takes us over the bumps. But as time goes on, the difficulties become more subtle and more challenging. Can you see your present difficulties as a path? A path has twists and turns, and surprises along the way. It leads somewhere, while a rut suggests a circular and meaningless motion. Name the different stretches of it, and the places of crisis along the way.
The Scriptures offer us frameworks for the spiritual journey. There’s a framework you may find helpful in Exodus, chapter 17. Moses was leading a fractious group of former slaves through the desert in search of a homeland. I’ll quote the passage here for your convenience.
“The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me….’ He called the place Massah [Place of Testing] and Meribah [Arguing], because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’”
Give names to the different parts of your own desert journey. It will personalise the struggle and give it meaning. Many have done this through the centuries. Think of Bunyan’s ‘Slough of Despond’ and ‘Valley of Humiliation’, etc. in Pilgrim’s Progress.
Moses struck the rock and water poured out for the people to drink. Water, the softest substance, essential to life, poured out from the rock, the hardest substance, indifferent to life or even hostile to it. It is a metaphor for spiritual transformation. Your desert is not only a desert, but a place of transformation.
The people’s deepest anxiety was: ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’ That, I suppose, is the heart of every spiritual crisis. Is the Lord with me in a time of spiritual drought, when my life feels barren and aimless?
Is there an answer to such questions? Keep the biblical story as a background to your search. Frame your questions and doubts in this ancient manner: Is the Lord with me or not? Put it, somehow, outside you. This may seem strange advice, but I'm not suggesting projection. I'm just suggesting a larger frame for your own individual struggle. Naming it in its various stages is a safe and helpful way of putting it outside yourself. Find other ways of taking it outside your own privacy. Ask, am I really all alone in this? Has this happened to other members of my community? Ask if you are not making a private sketch out of what is a vast drama of the soul in search of God. You have the whole imaginative world of the Scriptures to interpret it for you, to deepen it and open it out.
At a certain point of their long trek through the desert the Israelites were told by God, through Moses, to take off all their ornaments: “Take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do with you” (Exodus 33:5). God shows us mercy by taking away the things we cling to: the pleasant feelings we think we have a right to, the blissful peace, the poetry of everything…. This is a normal part of the spiritual journey. In addition to the Scriptures you have the teaching of the many Christian mystics throughout the centuries. St John of the Cross may suggest that you are experiencing the ‘Dark night of the soul’ – or something leading to it. Read what all these men and women have written about poverty of spirit.
I’m not a monk myself – I'm a friar – but I have been in many monasteries, and the abiding impression I have is that while it is easy (and tempting) to narrow your life down, it is very difficult to simplify it. By entering a monastery you have created your own desert. You have a desert of empty time because you don’t have the care of children or elderly parents, or the stress of a job (or two). But that was your choice. You chose a desert path, and it would be tragic to clutter it; instead you have to find its pure simplicity.
Henry Suso, the 14th-century colleague of Meister Eckhart, described a period in his life that sounds similar to your present experience. He could feel nothing. This answer came to him in prayer: “If you cannot meditate on Christ’s passion with eyes that weep, you should ponder it instead with a cheerful heart, because of its benefits. If, however you can neither laugh nor weep, you should meditate on it in the aridity of your heart. In this way you will not achieve less, for in this way you act from love of virtue, without consideration of yourself.”
He is far from alone in this; many struggle in this way for many years, some for most of their lives. The wisdom of the ages tells them, “Fold it in.” (That was the best piece of advice I ever got.) Make aridity itself your path. Don’t look away from it in despair; look at it directly, look at the detail. This was the answer that Henry Suso got in prayer.
The main support you have is the fact that you are not alone, you have the support of others who understand the struggle. Laypeople often go through the same territory, but often without the support of others who understand what they are going through. You have inherited a vast and deep tradition, and you are accompanied by people who are on the same path. In your prayer, turn every ‘I’ into ‘We’, and then, back again, enriched, to ‘I’. After that, every ‘I’ will echo as ‘We’, for we are all the Body of Christ.
Donagh