The signs of the time seem to be panic and fear. Sadly, in the workplace, friends, family and co-workers after many loyal years of service are being ushered out the doors by their employers. As a survivor, you might be thinking: “when will it be my turn.”Ancient myths teach that we grow by falling apart. They suggest a person needs to “descend into the underworld”, to live in darkness for a while, to sit in ashes so as to move to a deeper place inside of life; the mystics talk about “dark nights of the soul” as being necessary to bring about maturity.
All of these images point to the same deep truth, sometimes in order to grow we must first fall apart, go into the dark, lose our grip on what’s normal, enter into a frightening chaos, lose our everyday securities, and be carried in pain to a place where, for all kinds of reasons, we weren’t ready to go to on our own.
Why? Isn’t there a more pleasant route to maturity?
Let me share this image: The best wines have to be aged in cracked, old barrels. And so too the human soul, it mellows, takes on character, and comes to compassion only when there are real cracks, painful ones, in the body and life of the one who carries it. Our successes, bring us glory, while our pain brings us character and compassion. Pain, and sometimes only pain, serves to mellow the soul. Jesus was brought to compassion through “sweating blood in Gethsemane” and then dying a humiliating death on the cross.
But almost every instinct inside of us resists this wisdom. We don’t like living in tension, try at all costs to avoid pain, fear chaos, are ashamed of our humiliations, and panic when our old securities fall away and we are left in the dark, unsure of things. So our natural instinct is to get out of the darkness and tension as quickly as possible, before the pain has had its chance to mellow our souls, purify our hearts, bring us to a deeper level of maturity and compassion, and do its full purifying work within us.
The wisdom of the mystics tell us: When you lose your securities, when you find yourself in an emotional and a spiritual free-fall, when you are in the belly of the whale, let go, detach yourself, let the pain carry you to where it needs to take you, don’t resist, rather weep, wail, cry, and wait. Just wait. You are like a baby being weaned from its mother’s breast and forced to learn a new way of nourishing yourself. Anything you do to stop what’s happening will only delay the inevitable, the pain that must be gone through in order come to a new maturity.
Advice to anyone undergoing this kind of crisis of soul: Care rather than cure. Organize your life to support the process. You are incubating your soul, not living a heroic adventure. Arrange your life accordingly. Tone it down. Get what comforts you can, but don’t move against the process. Concentrate, reflect, pray, think, and talk about your situation seriously with trusted friends.
God prays for us as we reflect: “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.” (Psalm 119:50).
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who are suffering from the lost of their jobs, their homes, their health. May they experience the comfort and compassion that comes from trusted friends who help us walk through our tears. Don’t be afraid to suffer, give the heaviness back to the weight of the earth; mountains are heavy, seas are heavy. Know that the Lord hears your cry for help and promises to bring you strength and wisdom.
