Dark Night of the Soul (6.1) – A “System” to live by? No.

[3.5 minute read]

[a re-contextualization of Dark Night of the Soul (6) – Dad & His Family. Ours]

Kolodiejchuk wrote about the first of the two metaphorical nights (the “night of senses”):

“…there is a notable longing for God, and an increase of love, humility, patience, and other virtues.”

How do these increases happen? What role are we to play in our own increases?

The greatest authors who write about the dark night of the soul all advise in their own way that we do not resist it or attempt evasion, but embrace it in some mysterious form of surrender. For those of us more comfortable with practicable advice, how can we do this? After all, saints are rare. Surrender seems strange to most of us, as does mystery. They seem inconsistent with our nature, so seem difficult.

Is “The Way” of Yeshua only for the exceptional elite?

Is God’s love only for the select elect?

For a moment, set aside your indoctrination by institutionalized Christianity. Those notions seem outrageously ridiculous, don’t they? Were most of us created to spend eternity in hell? No way. No Way.

***
There’s no shortage of support programs that offer a rule, or set of rules, for navigating through difficult challenges in our lives. Even many aspects of institutionalized religions are aimed at this sort of navigation and “keeping the faith.” Pray a lot. Practice mindfulness. Have accountability partners and support groups.

I do not at all mean to belittle any of these avenues of help. You may favor one of these complicated systems over another. And another person may favor a different one.

Is there not one for all?

I think there is.

I favor the example of Yeshua. Not the institutionalized religions that use Christ’s name. But the example of Christ Christ’s-self.

I do not think Yeshua meant to complicate navigating through life’s challenges.

I think it’s clear Yeshua didn’t favor any complicated laws or belief systems. Yet many of the “programs” that offer to guide us today are complicated systems. Something about each of these systems conflicts with who we are, as if “no pain, no gain,” and only inexorable challenge is the way to contentment.

Is our present nature so corrupt that it needs a complex repair system?

That is not my take on the example of Christ at all.

When we “boil down” the message and example of Yeshua, is it a program or system?

Is it meant only for exceptional saints, or disciples dedicated to practicing a program, or religious rites?

Is this what Yeshua expected of the simple fishermen, laborers, housemaids, and social outcasts whom he called, and to whom he appealed?

We all should eat some humble pie and consider this question with some naked honesty.

I do not think there’s anything reasonable about asking us to act according to our nature by constantly trying to self-evaluate our nature’s corruption.

I don’t think Yeshua made his wish for us so complicated that only a small class of smart people would ever grasp it.

Somehow, His intention for us must have the same appeal to a lowly peasant as to the saints and the pope himself.

So I think it is deeply enlightening for us to consider how a beggar meandering the streets of a Third World country might be capable of following a simple rule or guide for how to live the example of Yeshua in every moment, searching desperately for the day’s food or wages. And, to me, the key lies in “moment.”
***
Next, Dark Night of the Soul (6.2) – Loving in the moment
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Neil D. 2020-07-02

The Still River Hike

photo of river

The Delaware River near Lackawaxen PA, separating Pennsylvania from New York State

Its depth was between my shin and thigh at different places as I waded upriver towing my youngest son against a subtle current. The water was clear enough for me to see that its bed was not jagged rocks, but many rounded—large or small, loose or solidly embedded.

I had to check the stability of each foothold before stepping again. The water felt good flowing around my legs. I hadn’t a plan other than to go upstream and float back down with my boy. Wasn’t thinking about how far, just taking step after step, enjoying the moments.

I had marched a couple hundred yards upstream around a bend.

As we floated back down, we exchanged a few words, but not many in total. We mostly just floated and observed and lived in the string of moments.

Landmarks on the bank drifted by slowly, as did plants and rocks that peeked above the calm surface. In some moments, I experienced that delicious illusion that I was resting — stillness — and the fixed objects were moving upstream, past me.

In other moments, bugs skating on the surface confused what was moving and what was fixed.

Sometimes a subconscious sense emerged that the entire surface of the water was flowing along with us. “The” river.

Sometimes noticing the riverbed beneath the water imbued a sense of immutability. This riverbed is always here. As is the water that flows over it, but not exactly. “The river” is a thing, but always in motion. So never really the same. It couldn’t be “the river” without its unmoving bed.

I think this tapestry of experiences might be what mystics mean by nondualism. Stillness perceived only by motion that’s gentle, yet enormous.

Thank you Pat and Alicia, Corrine and Andy, Noah and ” the river”…
photo of river through trees

The Delaware River near Lackawaxen PA, separating Pennsylvania from New York State

Neil D. 2020-06-27

See also Tree. Roaring.

More on stillness against which less familiar movement happens: (KINGDOMS 1) Mystical Gardeners

Dark Night of the Soul (7) – A SOPHIE sequel: Mirabai Starr’s “Yes” in parenting

(meet Sophie and her Ma in this prequel)

Yesterday, Sophie brought home her very own mule, the pretty one she had been eyeing at the livery since it appeared there 3 days ago. Her ma co-signed the moneylender’s contract. Today, Sophie steered her wagon through the estate’s gate, towed by the handsome beast. It was just a few hours before her shift at the weaver’s shop—her only sources of coin to make her debt payments…
.

Sophie stormed out of the shop before her shift even ended, exasperated by the intolerable state in which the morning laborers had left her loom, jeopardizing her job, and all of her debts linked to its wages.
.

…Sophie’s ma said her piece about the consequences if the shop’s supervisor sacked her for good. Ma doesn’t think that, as her mother, she needs to repeat herself: If she ‘feels’ her daughter right, Sophie, though stubborn and single-minded, gets it the first time, almost as if it were her own idea. So now they wait, to see where the marbles fall. To see if her daughter can rise to the maturity the occasion demands and retain her job at the shop, or take a new path. Ma will hold her own tongue and not dilute her initial words, despite how excruciating it is to resist more preaching. Sophie must find her own way, and Ma must let her.

Parenting is neither a test of wisdom, nor of patience. Parenting is a test of both, and more. Above all, parenting is a test of love.

Ma is thinking to herself:

“…This is not the first or the hundredth parenting challenge you have faced. If you actually — and not imaginarily — followed your heart to the counsel offered your daughter, it’s time to learn what being true to yourself means. Practice what you preach. You are not in control…

“The One who is in control has big plans for your mutual child. And people keep telling you how wonderful your child is so that you don’t have to rely on your self doubt. She will be OK..

“She’s in that One’s hands—-the One asking you to help, by acting first and foremost from the love that the One planted in your heart, so that you can recognize that you too are that One’s child.”

Love in the moment.

Sophie’s ma hopes that in every moment she can keep — as Mirabai puts it — saying Yes to that One’s love and example (read).

Meet Sophie and her Ma in this prequel.

Dark Night of the Soul (0) – Resources & Recommendations

Neil D. 2020-06-28

Mist

Mist
(by Kathy C.)

Soft, wet
It rises, it falls
It lingers, it vanishes
It cleanses, it nourishes
Like love

Light, translucent
It clings, it dissipates
It hovers, it crawls
It embraces, it releases
Like love

Dense, opaque
It protects, it preys
It endures, it fades
It comforts, it exposes
Like love

It is dew
It is haze
It is fog
Like love

It comes at dawn
It comes at day
It comes at night
Like love

Layered, cyclical
Ordinary, phenomenal
Predictable, mysterious
Like love

[Kathy C. 2020-06-24]

Pride is tricky. Best a mystery of love

There is a dark side to pride. Even pride in our child. Every child wants their parents to be proud, but why?

Pride is tricky. Perhaps pride in the good sense is a love or happiness for someone beloved to us.

When a child behaves badly in the presence of others, a parent feels shame. That arises from the ego because we think of the child as an extension of our self—a reflection of the values we impart to our child, and its negative judgment in this instance. Isn’t that a flipped peril of pride? When we are proud of their accomplishments, are we also proud of ourselves in that sense?

Should we take pride in our work? It is a common ideal to give all credit to God, but there is a saying attributed to St Augustine, something like:
With God, we can; without us, God won’t.

And so indeed there is a sense in which we bear responsibility for all that we do, including opening ourselves to God. Should we be proud of that? I suppose so, in a careful sense. If we believe we have the freedom to choose, and we choose righteously. But I think that too is ripe with danger.

I do believe that individuals have freedom, but I also believe it is irresolvably mysterious for each. We are products of our past back to birth, and even beyond birth by the gently shaping hands of evolution. Just as no two individuals have the same DNA, no two individuals share the same life experiences that shape their emotional responses and states.

In the same person, childhood freedoms differ from adult freedoms. And surely we would not ascribe the same freedom to a victim of mental disease as we would to one less afflicted.

Is this question of pride a question of balance? Of moderation? As long as the ego remains “properly sized” in relation to the soul, perhaps the ego cannot help but feel some pride. The ego is our sensor that we are an independent agent in creation. Is pride its form of self-love? Is self-love not good? I think that self-love is good. I think that loving another is limited to an extent that self-love is limited, so self-love cannot be bad.

I like to think of ego as a child that needs the loving embrace of its soul. It’s OK to be proud of ourselves and proud of our children when that pride is an expression in the voice of the ego submissive to its soul. As if, in embrace, the soul whispers to its ego, “Thank you ego for making that happen.”
With soul, the ego can; without ego, the soul won’t.

Yes, pride might be as far as ego can go on its own. And it seems that should be OK. It is one of the countless forms of love. And as long as love is situated in the realm of mystery, it is authentic.

I think a mysterious realm of paternal pride is spoken of in this song:

https://feelwithneil.com/2020/06/21/thundering-velvet-hand/

Neil D. 2020-06-24