Infused contemplation, then, sooner or later, brings with it a terrible interior revolution. Gone is the sweetness of prayer. Meditation becomes impossible, even hateful. Liturgical functions seem to be an insupportable burden. The mind cannot think, the will seems unable to love. The interior life is filled with darkness and dryness and pain. The soul is tempted to think that all is over, that in punishment for its infidelities, all spiritual life has come to an end. This is a crucial point in the life of prayer.
It is very often here the souls called to this contemplation are repelled by this hard saying: ‘Turn back and walk no more with Him.’ God has illumined their heart with a ray of light, but because they are blinded by its intensity, it proves to them to be a ray of darkness. They rebel against that. They do not want to believe and remain in obscurity. They want to see. They do not want to walk in emptiness of blind trust; they want to know where they are going. They want to be able to depend on themselves. They want to trust their own minds and their own wills, their own judgments and their own decisions. They want to be their own guides. They are, therefore, sensual, men who do not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God. To them this darkness and helplessness is foolishness. Christ has given to them His Cross, and it has proved to be a scandal. They can go no further.
I believe this is a critical time to listen with a childlike heart, rather than to try to reason things out with the intellect. The fact that I haven't been meditating, have barely been praying, doesn't matter. When something strikes as hard and deep as Merton's words have today, when those words prompt you to clasp your head between your hands and cry (in gratitude, because someone has seen and come to encourage you), "Oh, my God, that's me!" ... it's time to listen.
Purgation
If we don't learn from God how to die to dependency on anything less than infinite union with the infinite love of God as the sole source for our security and identity, this divinity of living our life in God cannot occur.
When Finley talks about purgation—"a kind of unraveling or undoing of our ability to live life on our own terms"—I can identify. And believing it has a Divine purpose is comforting to someone in the midst of it. As life seems to spin out beyond my control—and really, wasn't it always beyond my control?—as one crisis after another seems to erupt, I feel overwhelmed. To understand (suspect? hope?) that God is using (not causing) dire circumstances to unravel my confidence in my ability to live life on my own terms doesn't necessarily soften the blows, but it gives those clouds a silver lining.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Them, who have been called according to Their purpose.
Works for the good of those who love Them, no matter how pale and imperfect that love? God, I hope so.
As I contemplate this purgation, I begin to realize how tightly I grip the illusion of control, how unwilling I am to relinquish the things I believe I can depend on for my security and identity. I have to be willing—as I'm not so far—to redefine what security means to me, and that's a challenge for someone as anxious as I am. Safety and security are probably not the same thing, and I so long for safety! So it doesn't give me warm fuzzies when Finley says,
God spares us from nothing; God sustains us in everything.
I'm seriously in favor of sparing over sustaining—or possibly sparing with a side of sustaining. But I definitely want to be spared! Then I look around and see, "Time and chance happen to all men." And I hear Jesus say, "In this world you will have tribulation." Not might have, but will have. There may be occasional behind-the-scenes sparing going on, but it's not something I can or should expect or count on. Maybe not even hope for.
When you talk about letting go, the idea of God sparing and protecting is one of the toughest, if not the toughest, for me give up. That kind of naked vulnerability is a hard swallow when you feel threatened, when a cloud of vague, nameless dread seems to hang over you, every single day.
But confidence in my own ability to live life has taken a nosedive of late. So many very important situations are beyond my control: Leo's cancer, the side effects of his medication, legislative threats to his medical treatment, relationships, family members in financial straits, my own precarious finances, losing my voice and other challenges that come with growing older (Bette Davis, you were right about old age!), my spiritual dryness, the fear and rage and hatred that seem to blanket the world. I feel as if I'm living life in a blender ... whirling, flailing, and failing.
At this point, I don't actually know how to let go, even if I were willing, which, as I said, I'm not. Yet. I do, however, acknowledge the need to let go. It's just that it'd be so much easier if I knew what security in God looks like. If I had, you know, a few guarantees.
Identity isn't as big a give for me. Once I gave up my deeply cherished identity as Writer/Novelist—one I still miss and took years to finally yield up—I found myself not entirely sure of who or what I am. And that hasn't changed. I probably still set too much store on being able to label myself as a "strong introvert," a defense mechanism I'm apparently reluctant to do without. (It gives me an excuse for keeping to myself and floundering in social situations.) I have also, it seems, adopted the "little old lady" identity, which also appears to provide some weird social capital, at least in my own mind. (No, I can't explain it.)
And I have to be very, very careful about walking this path, so I don't become enamored of becoming a contemplative, which is just another egoic identity and will get in the way of experiencing union with God. As God knows, it's easy to lose my way. ("If [the process] depends on us," says Finley, "it's looking bad.")
God, help me.
Oh, how far I have to go to find You, in Whom I have already arrived.
Thomas Merton
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