“In the middle of the road in my life, I awoke in a
dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost.”
The Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri
*
Thank you, good Dante, for speaking plainly,
in terms of what is,
and not of what was,
nor of what should be.
But for simply speaking the rock-bottom truth.
It is true that sometimes,
right smack dab in the middle of the road of our lives,
we open our eyes and behold…
absolutely nothing…
pitch blackness…
a silence beyond silence…
at the edge of a dark wood.
There, in that void,
nothing familiar points the way home
or anywhere at all.
There, we find only emptiness upon more emptiness.
There, the only unifying thread
is the darkness stretching infinitely outward
and the perpetual despair within.
There, we find ourselves…wholly lost.
*
“Sometimes…we are required to periodically descend and enter the vast unknown territory of the underworld. In alchemy, these seasonal migrations were called times in the nigredo, or the blackening. It is helpful to see this as an inevitable and necessary time, a time of shedding and letting go, of sitting close to the furnace of death as it cooks away all that is spent and no longer serving life. Our time in the nigredo is a period of dissolution. Old patterns and perceptions, old, outworn identities begin to dissolve as we are unmade. Things fall apart. There is an unraveling, an emptying of hope, and an undermine of our great heroic enterprise to be in control and rise about our suffering. We are taken down to the ground and asked to… ‘dance the wild dance of no hope.'”
In the Absence of the Ordinary – Francis Weller
*
Very well, Francis Weller;
I grant your point.
I have encountered this nigredo of which you write,
and even emerged on the other side
brimming with deep gratitude and fondness.
I overtly cherish the “dark night of the soul.”
Hello Darkness, my old friend.
*
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
Job 13:15
*
These words, too, have I spoken
—and wholeheartedly believed—
that fateful night when my son’s car
flipped and rolled five times between earth and sky.
Peace settled over my heart even then,
and I knew that
—somehow—
whether my son lived or died,
everything would be alright.
But today,
today is different.
Today, all of these words
—both others’ and my own—
seem severely lacking and trite.
Today, I despise the negrido.
I rage at its encroachment.
Stay away! I shout from the depths of my soul.
Let me have my peace for one moment more,
one month more,
one year more.
Please, I beg you, don’t come near!
Today, my only reprieve is found in lament…
*
You, O God, are a bloodthirsty God,
Stripping flesh from bone when no more flesh can be found.
You summon orphaned children to yourself,
only to orphan them again…
and again…
and again…
How long, O Lord? How long?
You require faith
when it feels impossible to believe;
You extend hope as a real possibility,
only to dash it to the ground.
Out of faith, hope, and love, only love remains.
I live only to love
with my whole, broken heart—
attempting to fill up in others
all that is lacking in me.
What do you want?
God, what more do you want?
I surrender all;
Then you require more.
Therefore, I am forced to side with Teresa of Avila.
“If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few.”
*
“I sat with my anger long enough,
until she told me her real name was grief.”
C.S. Lewis
