In his book, The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth, (Harper One, 2005), Dr. Gerald May says that the Dark Night of the Soul (as outlined by St. John of the Cross) is basically a more conscious awareness of the deeper work of God that is always going on in our souls at all times. Based on his observation, I have decided to visualize my soul more like a map of the United States than as a graph showing its highs and lows. For example, I can be having a Mojave Desert experience in one area of my life and yet be on a beach in Hawaii watching the sun set in another area.
The problem becomes when I spend all my time and energy focusing on the Mojave Desert and none of it on Hawaii.
Desert times are to us what pruning season must feel like to a tree. Imagine you are a tree and someone walks up to you with a big, sharp pruning hook and starts lopping off branches. First of all, it must hurt “physically” (work with me here, OK?) as well as hurting your ego. You may have really liked those branches, thought they bore the most or the prettiest fruit last year and here is someone coming up and chopping them off with seemingly no mercy. If I were a tree, I would have a hard time at that moment enjoying the birds sitting in my branches or the blue sky and the sun. I would be zeroed in on the branches I was losing and the feelings of utter vulnerability, loss of control and nakedness.
God is always at work deep within us. For reasons known only to God, sometimes that deep, often painful work becomes more evident to us during certain periods of our life. If the pruning is especially severe, we call it the Dark Night of the Soul. Sometimes just saying “I’m in the Dark Night of the Soul” feels good. It gives elegance to what is often a very yucky time. People will say “ah” and make sympathetic clucking noises. It is the Band-Aid on the bruise we got as children: doesn’t change a thing but makes us feel better.
Our job during this deep work of the desert is to keep perspective. We are to, as that tree does during its pruning, stay rooted where we are, trust the Master Gardener, and believe that what is being lopped off will in fact lead to even better fruit at some point. This is NOT the time to look for a new church, a new job, a new spouse, or move across country in an attempt to alleviate the pain. Those new things may come out of the work God is doing but they are not ways to find a solution to the current dryness and darkness.
Also, we are to remember the parts of our life that are still in Hawaii. Like the United States, the Mojave Desert is only one section of the total geography, and, as Isaiah 35 still promises, even that will bloom eventually.
Join the Conversation
What “state” do you find your soul in today? How does that reflect on your journey with God?
What are the things that help you keep perspective during your desert times?
 Valerie Hess is an author, instructor in the Spring Arbor University’s Master of Arts in Spiritual Formation and Leadership (MSFL) program, retreat speaker, musician, mother and pastor’s wife. She does a weekly blog for the MSFL program and has written numerous articles, mostly on the themes of spiritual formation through the spiritual disciplines and church music. She has written two books: Habits of a Child’s Heart: Raising Your Kids with the Spiritual Disciplines (co-authored with Dr. Marti Watson Garlett) and Spiritual Disciplines Devotional: A Year of Readings. Her husband is an Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Boulder, CO. She has two daughters and two son-in-laws.
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