NSoC 32: The Night of the Senses

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Merton cautions that the contemplative life rarely begins with a vivid, light-bathed experience with God. More often it is a gradual build-up over time. Those who wait for the flash of lightning will likely be disappointed and waste a lot of time. In those cases when the flash does come, that does not guarantee contemplation; contemplation is acquired essentially by habit, not sudden enlightenment.

Contemplation, he goes on, is found "through a desert," harsh, dry, and barren. A wilderness seemingly absent of a path or of even the presence of God sometimes, against our expectations of joy and comfort. Many turn back to the marked path where their travels seem to be making progress. Prayers, sacrifices, readings, and devotions substitute for the suffering of the wilderness.

Merton says that when God does shine the light of knowledge into our spirits, often the feeling is one of defeat rather than triumph, darkness rather than light, filled with eerie shadows and silence. God seems distant, and the darkness frightens us. Others, though are drawn further into this darkness, as something draws them to trust and be still. Merton says as perplexing as this seems, here is where the will of God, or even God himself, is found.

Quaff:
I'm not particularly fond of the dark. Some of my most fearful and depressed times are triggered by darkness. Huddled beneath the covers of my childhood bed, the shrill siren of an ambulance pierces the air, utterly terrifying me. In the evenings in late fall, after the time changes and darkness comes before I leave work, hopelessness surrounds me. Deep in the woods, miles from the trailhead, as the sun slips behind the bluffs above and darkness descends on the camp, a deep longing for morning invades my soul. It is hard to be still in the dark. It is hard to think clearly in the dark. It is hard to concentrate in the dark. Send your light, Lord, lest the darkness swallow me up.