šæ Musings from Monks
āMusings from Monksā is an occasional series that explores insights from the writings of monks, mystics, and martyrs. These short guided contemplations are designed to deliver meditations, prompts, and practices. May they help you (and me) reflect on what it means to live a contemplative life.
āWhen the soul is making the most progress, it travels in darkness.ā
Again, the soul not only travels securely when it travels in darkness but achieves even more significant gain and progress because usually when the soul receives fresh advantage and profit, it comes in a way that it least understands. Indeed, it quite commonly believes that it is losing ground.
For, as it has never experienced that new feeling that drives it forth and dazzles it and makes it depart recklessly from its former way of life, it thinks itself to be losing ground rather than gaining and progressing since it sees that it is losing with respect to that which it knew and enjoyed, and is going by a way which it knows not and wherein it finds no enjoyment. It is like the traveler, who, in order to go to new and unknown lands, takes new roads, unknown and untried, and journeys unguided by his past experience. ā¦
Such a man could not reach new countries or add to his past experience if he did not go along new and unknown roads and abandon those which were known to him. Exactly so, one who is learning fresh details concerning any art always proceeds in darkness and receives no guidance from his original knowledge, for if he left not that behind, he would get no farther nor make any progress; and in the same way, when the soul is making the most progress, it travels in darkness. [ā¦]
+Adapted from Dark Night of the Soul
St. John of the Cross (1542ā1591) became a Carmelite monk at Medina del Campo, Spain, in 1563 and was ordained priest in 1567. He is known today as one of the greatest Christian mystics, Spanish poets, and cofounder of the contemplative order of Discalced Carmelites.
Contemplation: āTraveling in Darknessā
How comfortable are you with not knowing? We donāt always associate the art of living with learning to navigate and even embrace uncertainty, but we should. āPsychological or spiritual development,ā stressed the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, āalways requires a greater capacity for anxiety and ambiguity.ā
What if our desire for certainty stands in the way of becoming wiser?
As St. John of the Cross suggests, deliberately ātraveling in darknessā or at least becoming more comfortable with uncertainty is a path to noticing the mystery and meaning in the mundane aspects of life.
The American Trappist monk Thomas Merton observed,
You do not need to know precisely what is happening or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.
Itās important to remember that true certainty is seldom possible.
The art of living requires us to willfully and voluntarily ātravel in the darknessā (at least occasionally or when we feel called to do so).
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
P.S. New here? Catch up on previous volumes in the archive!
I see this darkness as our subconscious...... allowing depth truth to surface.