4. Contemplation: Guiding Night

Thomas Merton describes contemplation as "the highest expression of a person's intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive." But how do we move deeper into this contemplative life? In this episode we explore how times of suffering, vulnerability, and darkness can be thresholds through which we journey deeper into the divine life. How can these "dark nights of the soul" guide us toward an authentic encounter with God? 

Featuring music by Daniel Couper: http://www.danielcoupermusic.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to the Questing Soul Podcast, where friends come together to explore how we can journey deeper into the divine life. I'm Independent Christian Church, Pastor Benjamin Lee, and I'm joined by my good friend, theological enthusiast and fellow wayfarer Hannah E. Hecker. Whether you're searching or finding, deconstructing or reconstructing, wandering or wondering, we invite you to join us on this essential quest for a life that is good, beautiful, and true. Today's episode is brought to you by a 13th-century German poet, barefooted Spanish mystic, and a classy dame from West Virginia, who will all help us explore questions around the nature of contemplation. What is it? And how can pain and suffering be thresholds into a deeper encounter with God? We really hope these poets and mystics can help us out.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

That's a big job.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah. Speaking of classy dames.

unknown 1:08

Someone just gotta see yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Thank you, Ben. You're welcome. I'm implying that you meant I was a classy dame.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

A lot of times when I I hear an old way of referring to somebody, I think, oh, it's probably extremely racist or extremely sexist.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

And this one thing dame is racist.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I know it's not. Or sexist. Yeah, no, it's it's it's the English version of knighting. So you can either be a knight or a dame. And so it's got a regal connotation to it.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

It does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

So it's actually one we can use. I'm not sure what the another one that I've heard used is uh old broad. I'm not I am just to be clear, I'm not saying we should bring that back.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

So one of our sponsors is either a classy dame from West Virginia or an old broad from West Virginia. You get to choose, listener.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah. This is a great way to introduce contemplation. We're being so contemplative.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Uh but again, I think we've said before that theology begins with a sense of humor.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

An absurdity.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Realizing how far away we are. That's humility. Yeah. We're just trying to embrace our humility here. So anyway. We're talking about contemplation. What is contemplation? You wanted to talk about this. You mentioned last episode, like, oh, of the four different ways we can talk about Christian spirituality.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

This is this is my fault.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Let's start with the hardest to talk about. This is my fault. We are going to be drawing a little bit on Thomas Merton, even though he wasn't in our list of sponsors. Our con he's an old Kentucky monk from Gethsemane. He talks, he starts with contemplation. I think you mentioned this last episode about oh, what contemplation is not, and talking about that for an entire chapter. Yeah. So but it is helpful. And I think that was also kind of a Buddhist approach to truth, is you can't really talk about truth. You can only talk about what it's not. And if you say this is what truth is or this is what enlightenment is, yeah, then that is most certainly what it is not.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah. Well, on that note, you're gonna tell us what it is, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

No. I did think as a way to start contemplation or talking about it, the Greek word is actually kind of helpful, even though when people start breaking out the Greek and the Latin, it can be highly pretentious. But the Greek and the Latin, it's grounded in this word theoria, which is where we get theory or to theorize about something. But the root word of where contemplation comes from, and it was even used by like Aristotle back in the Greek times. In fact, fun side note. Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics says that like the goal of human endeavors is happiness, and the height of happiness is the urea contemplation. So if you want to arrive at this state of happiness, it is connected to this posture of contemplation, which that's interesting. We can probably unpack that. I don't think I can, but uh anyway, he's gonna do a whole episode on that. But the word literally means to look at, right? Like to contemplate something is to to look at something. It also means gazing at. So to contemplate God is not just to think about. In fact, it's it has less to do with the the mind thinking and more of the mind gazing at God or to consider God. But I they really hone in on this gazing at and there's a Jesuit theologian who popularized the notion of contemplation as a long loving look at the real. Have you heard that?

SPEAKER_03 5:22

I like that. No. No, I've never heard of that.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

And so he's trying to kind of readapt this notion of contemplation being gazing at, yeah, but reimagining it as this long loving look at the real. So anyway, I think that that's that's probably the best definition, short definition of what we're trying to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Just gotta be yourself. Would you hurry up and slow down? You don't gotta change the world. You don't gotta be someone, just gotta be a self and love.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Would you hurry up and slow? And the real, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

I was gonna say, what is the what does he mean by the real?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

God.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

I mean, if if God is the ground of all life, and I think we talked about love being the the life force of God, yeah, then like we're we're trying to take take a long loving look at what is the root of all reality.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

And then they're connected. And yeah. I don't know what you think about it.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

I think Thomas Merton talks about it as the source. He uses that word, the source of all life. Um, which I like that way of thinking about it, of gazing upon like what do we live in, right? Like what reality are we living in all the time, whether or not we recognize it. And I think that's what he would say contemplation is is like recognizing that and like the awareness of that, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah. Um and what are your assumptions about reality?

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Henry Nowen brings up the observation of how virtuous we think it is to be well adjusted. And then he asks the question if we're well adjusted to society, and society is horribly bent and twisted and not life-giving, not sustaining and cultivating a flourishing life. And we're well adjusted to that society, that's not that's a problem. Yeah. So maybe we need to learn how to be uh unadjusted to to to society. Contemplation is often just like returning to what is the ground of our being.

SPEAKER_04 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

And and is the ground of our being actually God? If it is, then it's gonna lead to something that's life-giving, life-sustaining, and flourishing. If it's not, if the ground of our being is something that's toxic, then it's probably not God and we need to readjust.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

How do you think we have find that readjustment? Will Is it is that too big of a question? I mean, like, because I'm thinking readjustment often comes in times it doesn't come when things are easy, right? Usually, right? I think when things are easy in our lives or things are running relatively well, it's easier sort of to like feel well adjusted, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Right. Sometimes when things are going smoothly and we don't feel any friction or pain.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

That's a good way to say that. Yeah, that's a better way.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

We we typically don't then look under the surface and contemplate what is the ground of our being, what uh become aware of what we think is real.

SPEAKER_04 8:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah. And so sometimes pain then can be an invitation or a doorway into that.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Um can I read you something?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah. Looks like it's from T Merton.

unknown 9:04

T.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Daddy Merton.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Tom Tom. As he is known in my brain. Uh just kidding, Thomas Merton. I'm gonna read you this quote. He says, Contemplation is awakening, enlightenment, and the amazing intuitive grasp by which love gains certitude of God's creative and dynamic intervention in our daily life. Hence, contemplation does not simply find a clear idea of God and confine him within the limits of that idea and hold him there as a prisoner to whom it can always return. On the contrary, contemplation is carried away by him into his own realm, his own mystery, and his own freedom. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

So good.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

I think like I love I love this idea that the idea that we have when we have these times in our life where those seeds are able to germinate more, that part of what happens in that is that we let go of certain ideas, right? Certain assumptions that we hold about life. And often that's like things about God. Uh we s we live with these sort of underlying assumptions about who God is and what God does in the world and how he engages with us, right? And I think like those periods, whether it's just in our daily life, like like Martin says, or if it's these kind of unique periods of of darkness or grief or whatever, um that part of what that is is letting go. Right. Um and in doing that, being able to take on sort of new new ideas, right? Yeah. Um so I don't know. That's why I love that quote.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So in the last episode we talked about the four quadrants. Another way of understanding is the the dynamic between external and internal spirituality, a spirituality that has to do with kind of our our actions and the things that we do within the world, but then also there's an internal component of spirituality of like what's going on inside of our hearts, what's going on inside of our minds. Then there's also an active and passive dynamic to what is it that we do and what is it that God does. Yeah. And then you rightfully said that this fourth one that's that's both it's it's internal and it's passive seems to be the most important. And I think we've kind of identified that as yeah, it is probably the most important because it's the one where God is most fully present.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

And or where we ex we we're experience his, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Like No, absolutely, yeah. It's the place where we are most us, and at the same time allowing God to be fully God within our hearts uh and within our our own being.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

So maybe that's maybe it's the most intimate to us. I like that. That's probably the better way to put it. So when you think about the other quadrants, like the external passive, we're in control of what we are giving up, right? Right. Even though it's it's passive, and oh, I'm gonna, I'm going to not do this or I'm going to allow this thing to happen to me. Yeah, I'm still the one that is actively giving something up by my own will or making that choice to come in. And then obviously the external active is the most like I'm in control of the things that I'm doing or the virtues that I'm trying to acquire or the good I'm trying to do. And then even with when it comes to the internal active where I'm trying to become aware of my own thoughts or trying to change the way that I see the world, again, I'm very active in that. But the this other quadrant of internal passive, what we're trying to do is within our soul actually say, Oh, I'm going, I'm I'm going to try to let go of everything. Yeah. And be before God and let God be God. And for God to lead.

SPEAKER_04 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And not having any expectation of what's going to ca happen after that experience. And not desiring anything from that experience, but just being in that experience. Uh, because a lot of people want to be in control of reality.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

That that makes sense to me. Like the idea, like maybe that control piece is the is the hinge, right? Of why those these times in our life that are harder, why those can be periods of like immense growth, right? That makes sense to me, that it would be like you're giving up a you're you literally are giving up control, but you also in these experiences have no control. Right. Yeah. Um and so yeah, that's that's very interesting. Maybe, maybe that's the that's what makes that kind of growth possible in that in the world. Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

So no, no, I think you're absolutely right. And I think we can come back to that. I think this is the important thing that Christians need to have a better way of talking about and a better language of is that, oh, God is not inflicting brokenness upon us in order to teach us a lesson. Right. But that these moments just exist. Brokenness exists, and we can we can come up against the brokenness of creation and reality and and other human beings and their actions upon us, that those are not necessarily good, but those can be thresholds as well. A lot of times we we want to create, externally create the conditions just right where there's no friction and everything's good, and that that's gonna help us contemplate. And I think the mystics actually say, that actually could hinder contemplation. Because we're in control of making the elements just right, and that sometimes this brokenness that we we feel and experience can be these thresholds. Through and beyond. Poem by Bonnie Thurston. One must be faithful to her own particular darkness and doubt, walk the way of unknowing, live through and beyond habituated fears. The imprisoned imagination instinctively knows chains that bind softly are still chains, and holding self tightly poisons the heart. Many thresholds beckon, some delightful, some devilish. The door is always open. One deep, grateful breath, one small step forward, has power to change everything. So do you have, I know this is a I hope this isn't a hard pivot, but um Where are you going? Do you have any moments that can kind of highlight how something that's not good, but you encounter it in a very raw way, but it becomes this threshold that that helps us enter into the divine in any way of the window. In my own life, you mean? Yeah, in your own life.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

Yeah. I mean, the thing that immediately comes to mind is I mean, I think you know some maybe you know some of the story in 2011, getting, you know, diagnosed with a chronic illness. Yeah. Out of nowhere. And I think it actually it was it was a time really for me of like immense spiritual growth. And I think part of that was that what you're talking about, that lack of control and having certain assumptions about God and that and then realizing through a really hard time in my life, a time of like deep darkness, finding that an assumption I had about God is like is actually not accurate. I don't know. I'm not quite exactly sure how to talk about it, but like I think I always thought God doesn't really care about our bodies, like you know what I mean, like the physical so I I think it's a pretty common assumption maybe that people have about God that they I wouldn't have been able to articulate that, I don't think. Or at the very least, that our b our physical nature, our physical bodies are like problems to solve or things to be sort of overcome.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Here's some phrases that I've heard people talk about with regards to the body of like, oh, it's just a capsule.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

The real thing is the the spirit inside, or this notion of like creation and our bodies are all gonna burn and we're just gonna live in these ethereal spirits floating around.

unknown 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, but that's not that's not Christian.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Well, and that that that like shell, right? Right. Uh that physical shell that it can kind of impede the spiritual life, right? That it can be kind of a stumbling block. And it can. It absolutely can. Right. Yeah. But I think I always had that assumption.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

And in this very, very mysterious way, having being that's interesting. Yeah. I mean it when I say I fundamentally do not understand the what happened in terms of like my progression of how I thought about it. Because I think I was coming up against this like very reality of like, no, my body, we do have broken bodies, right? Yeah. They are these sort of flawed vessels. But in the midst of that, having this deep sense that like God created me in a certain way for some particular reason. Uh, you know, I was it was a time where I was like, I needed something to cling to, and so I was reading a lot of scripture, and I've I came across verses that took on a new significance for me. Is it in is it Second Corinthians where God's saying, My strength is made perfect in your weakness. Oh, yeah. Like these are the these are the weaknesses.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

2 Corinthians where where he's where Paul he's got this quote thorn in his flesh, and we don't know it's afflicting something is afflicting him. And the fact that he calls it a thorn in his flesh makes it seem like Paul is talking about a physical disability. Yeah. And he says, three times, I prayed to God, take this away from me.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

And then was no that absolutely. And then what was the verse?

SPEAKER_03 19:47

I read those and I was like, I understand this. I know very deep level. I don't know what exactly he's talking about, but I get it. Um, but yeah, and then you know, verses like like in Psalm 139, like, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, you knit me together, like that kind of idea of God knew that. And yeah, I think I could have interpreted that as like God creating me for suffering, right? Like I think that is a way you can interpret it, but for some reason that's not how I interpreted it. Yeah, it it felt very much like I came out of that experience feeling very much like God cares very deeply about my physical nature. Yeah. And I guess that's what I mean when I say it's very mysterious to me. I don't, I've I really don't understand how that happening led to that sort of new interpretation of how God thinks about us.

SPEAKER_04 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

But yeah, I mean it can't and it came out of this time of like having no control. Like that's really like the the one thing I think we sort of I remember thinking like the one thing that we think that we assume we have control of is our bodies. Right. Right. Yeah. If I can't control anything else, yeah, at least I can control my body. And it was like, oh no, I have no control over that either. You know.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I actually remember us talking about this because 2011, I'm pretty sure it was 2011, was also when I had uh some panic attacks. Yeah. And it's just like, dude, I have been physically active. I pay attention to diet, exercise. I just I like that. And I've been in sports, and so being aware of my body and my body being something that I want to be sharp and quote in control over. I was also like living in ways that were not very mentally healthy. And my body, like, oh, I am nodding. Your body responded to it. Yeah, like yeah, in a in a good way. This where it was like this this moment of just being broken down.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Oh yeah, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah. Threshold. I needed my body to tell me that I wasn't in con control. And I don't know where the eye is in that.

SPEAKER_04 21:49

That's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yeah, but yeah. My body literally breaking me down was one of the best moments that happened. And the rest of the verse that you didn't quote from 2 Corinthians 12 was my uh he hears Jesus say, My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, Paul says, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness. Yeah, and there's just some there's a mysterious link that is fruitful to kind of contemplate and dwell upon is that link between embracing our own lack of control and somehow finding the mystery of God in that.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

This is a meditation from the book of the heart. It's a meditation from Meister Eckhart. What is our secret entry into your heart? We find it on the path of letting go of what we thought we knew, arriving at the place where we know nothing of knowing, beyond every notion of love, and from light enter the dark, only to find ourselves there, ever with you.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

This reminds me of I don't know if we can read it now. I don't know if this is too much, but uh I recently reread Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Ooh. And I don't know why I'm sorry, I don't know why I responded.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Um so he's he's like halfway through the book, he's he's he's been pursuing excellence in his own career. He's been pursuing, you know, education in literature and journalism in order to climb the corporate ladder, become proficient in, yeah, like I said, proficient in his career, but he's also dating women, and he's he's trying to pursue women in such a way where they're basically uh possessions and trophies of his. And he's trying to maintain a certain and attain a certain status within Columbia University as a professor, maintain a certain status within the social circles that he's running with in Manhattan. And he comes to realize that this is this has led to a type of emptiness. In other words, he's become well adjusted to a society that's broken. And so what that means is he too is bo broken.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

And he I didn't realize this, but he gets back to his apartment and he's actually suicidal in this moment. And these are the words that he says. And far, far away in my mind was a little dry, mocking voice that said, What if you threw yourself out of that window? I turned over in my bed and tried to go to sleep, but the blood drummed and drummed in my head. I could not sleep. So he's at this moment. He's at this, it's another threshold moment, but it's not pleasing. It's not, it's ultimately the brokenness of the life that he's created, right? And now my life was dominated by something I had never really known before. Fear. Was it really something altogether new? No, for fear is inseparable from pride and lust. It was humiliating. This strange wariness that accompanied all my actions, this self-conscious watchfulness. It was a humiliation. I had deserved more than I knew. There was more justice in it than I could understand. In other words, he's reaping the experience in the life that he's been sowing all of this time. It's humiliating. It's it's but then again, it's like it's the awareness of this is a part of contemplation because he's becoming aware the ground of his own soul is unhealthy. Anyway, he goes on. Here I was scarcely four years after I had left Occam and walked out into the world that I thought I was going to ransack and rob of all its pleasures and satisfactions. I had done what I had intended, and now I found that it was I who was emptied and robbed and gutted. What a strange thing. In filling myself, I had emptied myself. In grasping things, I had lost everything. In devouring pleasures and joys, I had found distress and anguish and fear. And now, finally, as a piece of poetic justice, when I was reduced to this extremity of misery and humiliation, I fell into a love affair in which I was at last treated in the way I had treated not a few people in these last 10 years. So he's talking about this a love affair with this this woman, and he's realizing that all of the ways in which his posture towards the world and towards this woman is now the same posture that's being directed back to him. In other ways, he he had been contemplating the world, he had been gazing at the world and and women and pleasures a certain way, and now he's the recipient of that same gaze and that same way of paying attention.

SPEAKER_04 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

And he's now feeling what it feels like to be objectified and used, and it's it's life-sucking.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

He doesn't love it.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

He doesn't love it. The wounds within me were, I suppose, enough. I was bleeding to death. I had come very far to find myself in this blind alley. And then here's he's this is the threshold, then. But the very anguish and helplessness of my position was something to which I rap rapidly succumbed. And it was my defeat that was to be the occasion of my rescue.

SPEAKER_04 28:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Isn't that great? That is so and then that's where this his biography, it's almost at the halfway point in Seven Story Mountain, and this is where his like life hinges and things start to turn. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Wow. Oh, that's that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

So Merton's painful threshold was it's it was self-inflicted, I think, right? It was his own pursuit of happiness, his own pursuit of what he thought would be fulfilling, led his his attempts to be well adjusted to an ill-adjusted society.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Led to this sort of painful moment that became his threshold. Uh before that was yours, when we were talking about your your diagnosis with uh chronic disease, that was not something that you contributed to. That wasn't bad choice, yeah, bad choices in life. Uh and so I think it's interesting that these are two different categories of pain coming into our lives. One just inheriting it as just a a part of nature. A part of life, yeah. A part of life, another one as, oh, this comes as a repercussion of your choices. So I thought this would be a good time to pivot to a classic story from one of the one of the saints of the church, a high-powered mystic, John of the Cross. A lot of people have High powered? High-powered, yeah. A lot of people quote him. Yeah. If you've heard of the Dark Knight of the Soul, that phrase comes from John of the Cross from the 16th century. And he has a very interesting story that I think can help people also contextualize how darkness can be a threshold for contemplation, for connecting with God, self-evaluation. Uh, but this devilish threshold was something that was inflicted upon by other people. So just kind of another another category of pain. One we inherit, one we create ourselves, and one by other people who have an ill will.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

It's very common, I think.

unknown 30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

We can all point to that happening in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Right. But before we do that, I want to read a few stanzas from his classic poem, The Dark Knight of the Soul. And these stanzas are where he begins his classic work, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Knight of the Soul, and talking about basically how do we enter into this contemplation. But but here's his here's his poem, The Dark Knight of the Soul.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings, ah, the sheer grace. I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. On that glad night, in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything, with no other light or guide than the one that burned in my heart. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me, him I knew so well, there in a place where no one appeared. O guiding night, O night more lovely than the dawn. O night that has united the lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her lover.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Pretty powerful words.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

I do think anything pop out to you. Yeah, I mean, I think uh a couple And by pop out, I just mean like evocative like things that make you wonder, um interesting turns of phrases. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

Yeah. I mean, I think several things jump out, but I think that last stanza, right? Oh guiding night, oh night more lovely than the dawn. Yeah. Um night that has united uh him with God, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Um in the language of God as beloved and lover. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Yeah. Um yeah. So I'm very I'm very curious to hear what this story, what this story about him is, because you know, he's somehow making sense of an experience that it sounds like was very terrible and is in that. I don't know necessarily exactly what he means by guiding night, but he's making sense of it in a really particular way. Yeah. And in a way that's saying it's more lovely than whatever this experience has brought about is more lovely than the dawn, which is like a very hopeful, beautiful time.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

And part of what makes it more lovely is because this has become a means to the union, that's that's part of what makes it a lovely path, even though it might not be comfortable in a number of ways.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

So yeah. So tell me the story. Okay, this you would it this is crazy. He's one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Will I not believe it?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

It's hard to believe. Uh he's one of my favorites because of how powerful a story is, and also helps me whenever I feel like I'm I'm in a dark place. I'm like, well, yeah, John navigated this. It could always be worse. It could always be worse. Yeah, and the that way of thinking can sometimes be unhealthy because it diminishes your pain. But there's other ways in which it can be healthy, of like somebody has felt this kind of pain that I'm feeling, and maybe even a little bit more intense. And it's it's not a way of dismissing my pain, but actually helping me say, I can do this. Right. There are different ways.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

There are different ways that I can, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

So a little bit of context.

unknown 34:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Like we we could talk about this for an hour. Uh so I've tried to summarize a little bit uh of who he is, and try not to, I don't have to paint the entire picture, but the when was this poem written? So a little bit of context. Uh, John of the Cross was a 16th-century Spanish monk, and he joined forces with Teresa Vavala. Teresa was his senior. John of the Cross was a part of a monastic order called the Carmelites. He went there because of their devotion to prayer, their devotion to contemplation and simplicity and service. And uh, and so service and mission for the Carmelites flows out of contemplation and prayer.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

And so that there, that's why there's a priority uh on contemplation prayer is because it's the it's the it's the space from which you do service. At the time, the Carmelites had gotten really comfortable. This happens in a lot of monastic orders, where the over time the original reason for creating the order gets lost, and people start to uh certain monastic communities get a little bit too comfortable with their donations. I don't know if you've heard the story when institutions become a little bit too comfortable with money and power.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

Has that ever like I can imagine?

SPEAKER_00 35:48

You can imagine, yeah. So it's a tale as old as time. And it continues to happen.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Sorry, I'm laughing because of the reference to uh Beauty and the Beast. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

So as easy it is to imagine that people could then come along and they realize what the original intent of the order is, and so want to do a reform. Yeah. So he wanted to do a reform, he was actually thinking about leaving the monastic order. Teresa was like, No, you need to stay in it. She recognized within him the purity of his heart, and that he she too was thinking about reforms within her monasteries, uh with her sisters, and that he actually could be a good spiritual director to her monasteries because they were kind of thinking about things in the same way. And so they they actually got approved by the church to do this monastic reform that was way more simple and um and grounded in in the tradition of where the Carmelites have started. So this reform starts to take traction, and then lo and behold, there's other young sisters and brothers who want to enter the monastery and don't want to have connections to power and comfort and wealth and prestige, but want this sort of simplistic notion of faith actually starts to take traction. So guess what happened?

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Interesting. Uh some of the people who like power.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Is that a yeah? They they that's a tale as old as time.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

They were actually, this is what's even more crazy. So the establishment we'll call them.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

They were just jealous that he was getting traction. Nobody was criticizing them.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Nobody was actually taking away their prestige or their political connections. Okay. They were simply threatened by their lifestyle of simplicity and poverty and prayer.

unknown 37:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

And and the fact that other people wanted to join them, it just made no sense to them. And so they they saw this as a direct threat, and tensions continued to mount, as crazy as it sounds, they tried to get their political influence to kind of hinder Tere both Teresa and John of like, we we've got to we've got to stop this. It's a hard argument to make.

SPEAKER_03 38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Because it's already been approved by the Pope.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

And because they're doing what the order says that they are meant to do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

And so they then realize that the formal direction isn't gonna suppress them. And so the boiling point comes when one of the chapters in the Carmelite Order on the night of December 2nd, 15th.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Wow, we we even know what day this happened. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

A group of these Carmelites backed with armed men of their political connections broke into John's simple cell and dwelling place in Avala, kidnapped him, blindfolded him, took him in secrecy by cover of night to a monastery in Toledo, Spain, and he was then put on trial before the these friars and a tribunal for his quote for being a rebellious and contemptuous monk for refusing to it to renounce the reforms that he was imposing.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Yeah. He then That's a bonkers. He doesn't recant because he's like, I can't like renounce the things that the order. Right? And so then how do you renounce simplicity?

SPEAKER_02 39:28

That's a no, I'm going to be more rich.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Give me riches. So, but they throw him in jail for uh a little bit, and then John of the Cross was also known to he was a very small man. So part of it was because of his he grew up in poverty and was malnourished growing up. And so this just left him very small, petite, frail. And so, because of that, they mockingly then take him out of a cell and throw him into a converted closet that used to be a latrine that was six feet by ten feet. And he spent six months in this uh starting in the cold winter with like no exposure to heat. It's just a cell room. So six feet is my arm length by ten feet. And they locked him in this uh closet and then had no windows. He was given a single blanket to sleep on the hard floor. Uh his diet was just mostly water and bread and salted fish, and he developed malnutrition, as you can imagine, lice. He was told by his captors that the reform had completely collapsed. So they're like telling him these lies that the reform had collapsed. He was completely cut off by the by the world. We later find out in in some of his letters that his biggest his the biggest weight for him during this time was that his he thought his friends would think that he had just run away. Oh and that was the biggest wait was not because they did it in secrecy. Because they did it in secrecy, and so nobody knew he'd been kidnapped. Yeah. So anyway, it gets worse.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Um I'm sorry, I wrote, I don't know how it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

It's already worse than I imagine. So they're whispering these lies to him. They're also whisp they're also saying stuff like, uh, you're probably not gonna make it through the month, and making these like veiled allusions to that they they were gonna kill him. And so he the small amount of food that he's getting, he's worried that it might be poisoned, but he's also starving to death. Oh my gosh. He's then also regularly brought before the in the refractory, which is kind of the dining room, the official dining room while everybody eats. They sometimes do business while the monks eat, and they would bring him out while they're all eating and have him sit on the floor, and as a form of this like old school penance, the different friars would come by and whip him on the back while and so that he also had scars on his back that and wounds that he never quite healed from uh for the rest of his life from this from this time. And uh again was kind of ordered to recant his reforms. He was mocked and told that like everybody had abandoned him. So these are the kind of trials that he's going through by his own This is all being yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

This is all being done by monks in his order.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Correct, yeah, but by the order that was not uh associated with the reforms, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

So I don't even know what to say.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Right, yeah. So he then goes back, they then like during his short term out, this was his only time out, and then they put him back into his little six by ten foot cell, and he had developed a relationship with his guard, and the guard gives him some pen and paper, and he's able to scribble down notes and thoughts that he's having uh at this time. And one of the things that he he writes are the beginning lines of this of this poem. And I wanted to read this is from a Father Father Ian Matthew is a current Carmelite monk of this reformed order. So the reform, as we know, from Theresa. I was gonna say it survived. It survived. This is what Ian Matthew says uh about kind of this moment. He had been hauled beyond the threshold of his own resources, taken to those outer limits where the only alternatives are on the one hand, a spirit who fills, or on the other hand, chaos. Was as if the anesthetic which normal life provides had worn off. His inner self had been scraped bare. And now he ached in a way he never had before. He ached for a God who was utterly beyond him. This was the real wound, the wound of being away from God. And it drew from him a raw cry, where are you? Where have you hidden, beloved, and left me groaning? You fled like a stag, having wounded me. I went out in search of you, and you were gone. It's this moment where he's longing for God, and he's aware of the absence of God. And this moment has brought him to this this kind of crux, this precipice, I guess you could say, where he's most acutely aware of the absence of God, which then makes him acutely aware of his need for God.

SPEAKER_03 45:15

Yeah, his longing.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Yeah. Uh and so that's he uses this moment in this context to explore that. And that's this then becomes his kind of gateway into contemplation. But it's does it doesn't come easy. Yeah. Yeah. So real briefly, we think, we don't know, but that guard one night leaves the door open and leaves.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

And John sees the moment, he somehow finds in another room bedsheets and ties together a few bed sheets from this other room and climbs out of a window. And he finds out where he's at, finds one of the monasteries that Teresa in the area that Teresa had founded. He he makes his way there and starts to convales and recover. He continues his work with the with the nuns of Teresa's work. He he bounces around, but he also starts writing and reflecting on this moment as the kind of threshold into a new kind of contemplation. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 46:30

So when when we say Dark Knight of the Soul, that's yeah, that's where that phrase comes from.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

That's where that comes from. And that's the context in which he starts to think about it. Yeah. And one of the things he's trying to get at in Dark Knight of the Soul is he actually in that in his work, which is really dense, it's really, I don't recommend you just picking it up and trying to read it. It's so technical. It's uh so it's got these really beautiful moments, but you really have to wade through a lot.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

It's not a it's not a beach read.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

No, it is not a beach read at all. Uh, but it's got these gems in it, but you have to wade through a lot of technical theology to get to these moments of real beautiful insight. Um, but one of the things he tries to hash out is in order to experience the dark night of the soul, which is why don't you read that last stanza that you read?

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Oh, guiding night. Oh, night more lovely than the dawn. Oh night that has united the lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her lover.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

So that's John's notion of contemplation is this moment of we talked about the long loving look into the real. And so where he's able to gaze upon God and aware of God gazing upon him. And in that moment of mutual reflection, he also uses the word a nakedness of the soul throughout this work. And so when he talks about a nakedness of the soul, this like being stripped bare of like who am I? What makes me who I am? Is it my accomplishments? Those have been stripped away.

SPEAKER_04 48:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Is it my well-being that that has been just stripped away?

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

I mean, just so is it my connection with the world?

SPEAKER_03 48:20

Is it my community? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Yeah, my community. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, you think of all of the things that give us anchors in life and put on. And all of it. All of that is stripped away. And so when he talks about a nakedness of the soul, he's feeling that and then asking the question, where is God? Yeah. Legitimate. He's yeah. But then, but then he's realizing why is it that I still long for God?

SPEAKER_03 48:44

Right. That's what I was gonna ask is like, what is that? Yeah, uh, where does that come from?

SPEAKER_00 48:50

Right. Right. And not, I mean, a lot of people would say, forget this, you know, forget, forget community, forget this. I mean, basically go Nietzsche.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Nihilist. Why? There is no meaning in life.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

I mean, of all people that sh would be able to arrive at that conclusion, him. But that why have you abandoned me? Und what's underneath that is a cry of longing.

SPEAKER_04 49:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

I want you.

SPEAKER_04 49:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

And so it's perfectly acceptable to say why have you abandoned me? Because the deeper prayer is I want you here.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

And then realizing that's that's the bedrock of contemplation. And that I think is a powerful moment that this particular kind of threshold can be an invitation to.

SPEAKER_03 49:35

Yeah. Yeah. And that's not to negate the fact that it was really terrible for him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

Um, it was there's like still condemn the acts.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

Yeah. There was like a him deciding to respond in that particular way. He has that freedom to choose that particular way of responding. That's very powerful. We don't we often don't think when we're in these situations that we have power to respond in a certain way, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Or that be able to imagine its potency and potential.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

And it's hard, you can't just tell people, oh, God makes all things happen for a reason. It's not that. Yeah. But it's also, it's, it's not a sentimental optimism. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

It's something else.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

It's walking a line somehow between between those two things. Or not even between those. It's walking a different uh way of engaging.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

And it's something that another person cannot. This is what's so beautiful and intimate about contemplation is like an external person could be a Teresa was a great guide and help for John of the Cross and vice versa. But like only John is in a position to cross that threshold.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about that. But that's it.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

I think that's the sentimental what what is unpowerful about a sentimental approach of optimism is you can't tell somebody like when you're going through something like that, oh don't worry, this is all gonna work out. Like it might not. I mean, you know what I mean? Like no, that that person has to see the the particular threshold and willfully cross it.

SPEAKER_03 51:18

Yeah, yeah. And in that way, it is a very sort of intimate uh personal thing that happens between conversation that happens between you and God, right? Yeah. Um that what's happening, what you talk about, we talk about like the ground of our being, right? And uh being stripped down to that to that level and that understanding, yeah, is very personal.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah. So as we talk about contemplation, these I think really interesting and important themes start to emerge. So we already talked about pain from life circumstances, what we mentioned from your story, the unique way in which that can help us understand God, relate to God, be open to God in a new way.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

And it's not always intuitively obvious.

SPEAKER_03 52:18

Yeah. It's very mysterious.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

Right. Yeah. Yeah. But nevertheless, stories like yours, and I think people can identify similar moments of just the givenness of our reality, the givenness of our bodies and our minds become the way we understand God, and particularly in their quote, imperfection. Sure, yeah. And in fact, we might even have to find new language around. That's what I was just thinking. Do we even call it brokenness?

SPEAKER_03 52:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

Anyway, so that that's a theme that we touched on, but we could definitely come back to. Then Thomas Merton's theme of the pain of the reality that we create for ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 52:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Even though it creates an unhealthy circumstance, it also becomes and creates moments of turning and thresholds.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

It's like the Michael Casey that we talked about a couple episodes ago.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Falling off the boat.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Yeah, yeah. Well, he says, like, so it's it's like the idea of Thomas Merton like going so far off course that God's like, oh, I'm right here.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Yeah there's no distance far enough off course that that puts you outside of God's grasp.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

And what God can creatively do. And then we've got like the last story from John of the Cross. And I think we can identify all three of these in our lives.

SPEAKER_04 53:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Moments that are just a part of the fabric of our own being and making sense of making sense of that, things that we've done to ourselves and others and the situation. And then the third one, oh, these are a situation that people have imposed upon us.

SPEAKER_04 53:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

And seeing all of those is means to encounter God. But we need to be careful how we talk about that. What's the language we use to talk about? A contemplation, what is it? But B how you enter into moments of contemplation. And that these are counterintuitive ways that we've talked about today.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

I think other things that we've touched on that we could revisit is what seems to be a common motif is power and control.

SPEAKER_03 54:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

And our own grasping after power and control, but also us being victims of other people's power and control. And how that seems to play a crucial element. We we've got to talk about that if we're going to talk about contemplation. Because contemplation seems to be so intimately connected with letting go of giving that up.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

Yeah. So what is that?

SPEAKER_03 54:46

Or or under, you know, the awareness that you've never had control.

unknown 54:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

And then what does it mean? We often talk about God being all-powerful and we understand power and control is synonymous.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

And Christians have even confused those two, but there's more and more. What were you going to say?

SPEAKER_03 55:08

Oh, I was just laughing, thinking about how much of Christianity is us confusing those two things.

unknown 55:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Which I think the Christ hymn is something that we're going to come back to. The Christ Hymn comes from Philippians chapter two, and it starts off even though he was in the very form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped but emptied himself.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

Yeah. Talk about giving up your control.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

That the very nature of who God is is not considering equality as something to be grasped but emptied. That I think is also very much intertwined with this concept of prayer and contemplation. Yeah. So more things to this is just part one of our conversation on contemplation.

SPEAKER_03 56:03

Amazingly, you can't talk about it in one episode. You can't finish the topic.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

We have to take a meandering approach.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

Or maybe other people could, but we can't.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

And that's another episode of the Questing Soul Podcast. Thanks to Hannah for contemplating the mystics with us. Thanks to Daniel Silliman for all of the production. Thanks to Daniel Cooper for our awesome interstitial music and you dear listener. Tune in next time.