The biggest questions that have plagued me lately cut deep in my soul:
- How can I help people, when I can barely help myself?
- How do I provide hope for others, when I myself feel very little hope ?
- How do I heal, when I am so broken?
- How do I offer spiritual direction, in the dark night of the soul?
It’s a painful query and I don’t really know the answer. The best I can do is remind myself that when things get basic, I have to get basic as well. How can I take care of myself in this time? I know, in part, how connected our minds and our bodies are to our soul’s… how to even disconnect them? So when I don’t have answers to the existential questions, at least I may find some clarity in my body.
What am I eating, what am I drinking, am I moving (exercising is good, but at least I should be moving), how much sleep am I getting… there is a need to get clean.
Because we are still called to be present with those around us… to hold space in their suffering… and so often we really don’t have a choice, we come with our broken selves and we listen. How difficult it really is to be brutally honest about how I’m doing and not take all the attention on to myself. We learn as we go, and we remember especially in these times how equal we all are as human beings.
I am also reminded by the ancient mystic, John of the Cross, the one who first wrote so extensively on the dark night of the soul:
“When we begin our spiritual journey we often want God to desire what we want, and become dejected if we have instead to learn to desire what God wants. We measure God by ourselves and not ourselves by God, which is quite contrary to the gospel. For our Lord says that those who lose their lives for his sake will gain it, but that they who desire to gain their life will lose it.”
What does “losing your life” mean to you? How do you help others when you are at the end yourself?
Related articles
- Entering your suffering with you – the opportunity of spiritual direction (natebettger.com)
- Hooked on a feeling (unexpectedlovely.wordpress.com)
- Soul Weary: Day 26: Lent Journey (heathertiger.wordpress.com)
