Farther Up and Farther In
The Three Temptations of the Passive Night of the Senses
In my reflecting on the material from the last session, I was very struck by the handout on the three temptations of the passive night of the senses – the spirit of fornication, the spirit of blasphemy and the spirit of dizziness. These three are all things that I have experienced, though I tend to be more plagued by the spirits of fornication and dizziness.
For me the spirit of fornication is usually temptation related to sex, and is bound together with, as I see it, an offer from God to lead me into wholeness and integrity as a gay man. The gay world makes many offers about sex, about sexual indulgence as a road to fulfilment and happiness, and, indeed, the necessity of being sexually promiscuous as a way of being a ‘good gay man’. It is possible that sex decoupled from the possibility of procreation always brings these tensions. One of the learnings that God has offered me has been that creativity through sex is something that occurs not simply due to the fertilization of an ovum by a sperm, but that in the act of sexual intercourse meaning is generated, and that in a loving relationship God’s creative presence is with me and my partner during sex. The spirit of fornication, however, offers something completely different – sex for the reward simply of sex, or sex as conquest, or sex as distraction – which is perhaps the most destructive at all. Sex as distraction leads me away from God, and for a time ‘blocks’ the creative presence of God within me. The act of sex differs little whether it is sex as gift of God and self, or sex as distraction – what differs is the end. My own struggle with this is largely in the context of coming back, again and again, to the offering of myself to God and my partner in sex, rather than to indulge in endless trudging in the mire of sensuality. I tend to use the Buddhist technique of simply acknowledging that the temptations and imaginings are there without becoming too engaged with them or upset by them. I find this more effective than obsessing about them and worrying that they are there.
My experience of the spirit of dizziness is quite similar to the description of Nathanael’s experience, in a way. I tend to be the sort of person who is easily irritated by others, and I am often not keen to suffer fools gladly. Both of these things lead me to judge others harshly. I often do nothing about that – I don’t shout, scream or become overly harsh, but I can become cold and distant. In the last few years I’ve become much more aware of the need to work with God to change me. I have certainly, in the past, used self-help ‘techniques’ and ‘systems’ which have been more or less useful in the short-term – none had any long-standing effect. Thomas Keating’s (2001, 75-6) comment, “the night of sense enables us to see that the core of the emotional programmes for happiness is selfishness” is particularly appropriate for me, I believe. For me it is clear that a key need for me is to be right and to be at the centre of my own universe. God’s action in drawing this tendency to my attention repeatedly and without alloy is intensely painful, but very useful when I see it for what it is – an offer to grow and be purified (O’Donoghue, 137). Williams (98) notes the real meaning to deny oneself – the decision that I will not shape the truth to my wants and needs, that I accept reality as it is, and that I accept that I am not the centre and controller of that reality.
The spiral back to theosis – to becoming what by nature I am called to be – strikes me powerfully. I see, also, the vast value of the tradition and of the schemes that fathers and mothers such as Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross describe for the work of the director. By being familiar with them, alive to the tradition and contemporary insights, and by noticing the movements of God in myself – as well as co-operating with and becoming the deifying light – I am able to be the director God calls me to be for those he calls to me.
The Dark Nights and Depression
My own experience of depression is that it is something that God may be in, and can use for God’s good ends. It has been an experience that God has used to remove certainties and false conceptions of reality from my world. This has caused me to fall back on trust for God in the bleakness of fog. I have described this situation in my journal as like being in a dense bush, full of trees and undergrowth. The bush is, however, foggy and misty, with a deep and pervading silence and stillness. There are no signs in it, no clarity of direction forward or back. I am simply in it, and am required to trust God in the process of being in it. I cannot feel God, see God, or even know that God is here – I just have to trust and remember that God loves me and wants me to trust and love God. My love for God is at the core of my desire to go on, however. I had a profound experience, years ago, of Christ as lover, and this mystical gift (really the only one I have ever had) stands as a reminder to me of the reality of God, and of Jesus’ burning love for me. O’Donoghue (136) puts it well, I think, when he refers to it as a “powerful inner dynamism”. However, it is very hard at times, as I am often plagued with the horrible thought that the entirety of my journey may simply be a ‘spiritual wank’ – a fantasy designed to meet some needs in my defective personality. What if I am deluding myself and, much more importantly as I make this spiritual direction formation journey, others? As I write this I remember the distress Jesus felt in Gethsemane, and wonder if his journey, too, consisted as much of the absence of God as the presence? Certainly, his asking why God had forsaken him is something I can relate to, and why the words of many of the psalms prayed daily in the Office resonate with me.
The Household of Bethany
Thomas Keating (2007, 22) writes that Lazarus is a paradigm of Christian transformation – the movement from false self to transforming union. I understand this to be the journey of theosis (see also Keating 2007, 30). I find Keating’s (2007, 26) observation “… hence, there is no place to go to find God [.]… We just have to stop running away” to be a great truth for myself and for those who come to me for direction – for “contemplative service” (Keating 2007, 25). My job is to help them to stop running away, and to help them become the Word of God (as my own job is, too). It does strike me as terribly sad that the last paragraph of that section seems to be so far from the reality of the churches in which we worship:
The Christian community is where Jesus is experienced as a living reality. It is where people are struggling to move through the traditional stages of the spiritual journey and are supported by the presence, example and wisdom of like-minded companions or soul-friends. (Keating 2007, 26).
It strikes me that spiritual directors, as soul-friends, have a particular responsibility to provide support, example and wisdom, especially as those things are so absent in many of our churches. This is an awesome responsibility, and requires that those of us who work as spiritual directors are absolutely committed to the spiritual journey, are in an obedient relationship with a wise spiritual director, and are willing to be present to the community as pilgrims on the way. I suspect this is even harder in today’s church where there is a great deal of emphasis on covenants, orthodox purity, programs, plans and vision statements. It seems to me that the leadership we often receive is stunted and far from pointing people to the place of authentic living water, of transformative union with God.
Open to Judgement
Rowan Williams, with his characteristic insight, penetrates to the centre of the matter. The journey God is leading me on “makes nonsense of all religion – conservative or radical – and all piety” (Williams 96). For myself, the catalyst to the journey was a series of crises which destroyed certainty and pushed me to the edge and beyond. I was forced to ask the question Rowan Williams poses – did I (do I) want spirituality or mysticism, a type of experience, or did I (do I) want God? I answered that I want God – and although the path is unmarked and I seem most of the time to be lost, I don’t regret the journey. I doubt myself and the call that I received to enter into union with God, but I don’t regret setting out to walk on the journey.
“Intimacy with God means refusing all consoling substitutes for God and bearing the consequences” (Williams 98) – this is something that we need to tell people and help them through. The ‘caramel cremes’ of religion which people are fed (for whatever reason) only serve to maintain them in a sort of stupor, with only a vague connection to God. The consequences of intimacy with God for me, as Williams notes, are that I too will bear the marks of the crosses I carry, and I will continue to bear them. I must be prepared for that and not in fear of the pain, the lack of consolation and the lack of clarity.
Works cited
Keating, T. Invitation to Love. Continuum: NY, 2001.
Keating, T. The Better Part: Stages of Contemplative Living. Continuum: NY, 2007.
Merton, T. New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions: NY, 1972.
O’Donoghue, N. Adventures in Prayer. Burns and Oates: London, 2006.
Williams, R. Open to Judgement: Sermons and Addresses. Darton, Longman and Todd: London, 1994.
