Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name?
Amidst the descriptions of seas of glass, beasts with seven heads and ten horns, and frogs coming out of the mouth of a dragon, is this phrase. I’m grateful, again, for the accompanying reflection or again, I would have missed it.
The reflection is written by Gerald May, and he writes about the dark night of the soul. This is a concept whereby people of faith stumble and doubt and feel great distance from God. He argues that the dark night of the soul isn’t a night or a season; it’s always with us. He even goes so far as to suggest that it isn’t a bad thing.
He likens it to a child’s acceptance of mystery and unknowing. As we grow up, we become less and less comfortable with mystery and not knowing things. The dark night of the soul is the scarier, but necessary companion to our growing in deep faith and letting go of our need for knowing. It’s our reclaiming of mystery because of a deep faith in God’s providence.
As children the whole world is a mystery and uncertainty. We need a foundation on which to grow and become the people we are made to be. As a result, we undergird our world with knowledge and certainty and principles. The house that sits on that foundation is the world. The reality of the uncertainty of the world remains, but we can proceed with more confidence because we are armed with our self-made truths that create the illusion of knowing. Our house is secure on the foundation of knowledge. Or at least we think so.
Perhaps what May is suggesting is that the dark night of the soul is the slow disintegration of that self-made foundation. Every time, something we know as a truth is shaken, our foundation is shaken and we go through periods of doubt and questioning. With God’s grace, that void is filled with faith. It’s definitely an unsettling process. And as we grow in relationship with God, we slowly dismantle our false foundation of certitude.
We still live in a world of mystery and uncertainty, but we are living in a world made more secure by faith in God. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
This morning, I’m thinking about how to recognize the false foundations I’ve built, and to embrace that unnerving process of swapping out knowledge for faith. Life is a beautiful mystery. I want to celebrate that mystery and uncertainty, and live by faith.
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