There is a darkness that we are all led into by our own stupidity, by our own selfishness, blindness, or by just living out of the false self. And there is a darkness that I believe God leads us through for our own enlightenment. In both cases, we have to walk through these dark periods by brutal honesty, confessions, surrenders, letting go, forgiveness, and often by some necessary restitution, apology or healing ritual. I still hear of Vietnam vets who feel they must go back to Vietnam and help some Vietnamese children to be healed.
Different vocabularies would have called these things acts of repentance, penance, mortification, dying to self, “making amends”, or even ego stripping. By any account it is major surgery and surely feels like dying (although it also feels like immense liberation). We need help and comfort during these times. We must each learn for ourselves how to be led by God and also by others. But how can we know the light, or deeply desire it, if we’ve never walked through the darkness?
~From Richard Rohr, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety
[divider]
The great thing about God’s love is that it’s not determined by the object. God does not love us because we are good. God loves us because God is good. It takes our whole lives for that to sink in because that’s not how human love operates.
Human love is largely determined by the attractiveness of the object. When someone is loveable, nice, good, and attractive, physically or in terms of their personality, we find it much easier to give ourselves to them. That’s the way humans operate outside of the economy of grace. Divine love is a love that operates in an unqualified way without making distinctions between persons and without following personal preferences. We almost don’t have an outlet in our head to receive that notion! Divine love is received by surrender, a word frequently used by the mystics.
~Adapted from Richard Rohr, Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate: Seeing God in All Things (CD)
[divider]
Why do we have this gift [of the Holy Spirit] and yet not realize it?
Perhaps God does not want to force anything on us that we do not actually desire or choose for ourselves. So a lovely dance ensues between God and the soul that preserves freedom on both sides. The gift is already within, and yet has to be desired and awakened by the person. But you never know that it is within until after it is awakened!
Faith is often clarified and joy-filled hindsight—after we have experienced our experiences. But the path ahead still demands walking in trust, risk, and various degrees of darkness. Henceforth, you will remember in the darkness what you once experienced in the light. But the path ahead will always be a necessary mixture of darkness and light.
~From Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See How the Mystics See
