My "Dark Night of the Soul"

Reading Walter Brueggemann’s contrasting of Psalms 73 and 139 in an essay entitled, “The Cunning Little Secret of Certitude,” in his book The Covenanted Self (see a previous  post), I remembered how Psalm 73 saved me from my own “dark night of the soul” that followed the ending of what I thought would be a lifelong relationship within weeks of my mother’s death in 1999.

The psalmist compares our lot with the prosperous who are “sound and sleek…always at ease, they increase their riches.” I wrote about it in The Final Deadline:What Death Has Taught Me about Life (pp 119-121) and I offer excerpts here in the hopes that those who experience their own “dark nights” may find encouragement: 

I felt worse than unloved, I felt unlovable, unattractive, undesirable. Life now seemed like such a challenge that taking things “one day at a time” seemed like too big a chunk. It was “one thing at a time” for me: “Okay, I’ve completed this task. Now I will…” …

Three more friends died of AIDS that year. I worried if I would be able to keep my home or manage the bills that we had paid jointly. I endured a bad working relationship that threatened the greater part of my income. I dated people who turned out to be scary in one way or another. I drank too much. I acted out sexually. My car died on a busy interstate in downtown Atlanta in the middle of the night. Over the course of several months I had three flat tires. My wallet was stolen. The final insult came as I watched helplessly—despite my best efforts—as a fungus killed my lawn!

That year I scrutinized myself, and not just in relation to the death of the relationship. I considered also the death of my relationship with the church, called to ministry yet denied ordination because of my sexual identity. My hopes to reform the church remained, but I came to believe for the first time that it would not happen in my lifetime.

If I had been straight or closeted or already ordained or simply less visible as a spokesperson for our movement, I might have been gainfully employed all these years, increasing my seniority and salary and benefits and retirement with each passing year, plus having ample time and income for study leaves and sabbaticals and vacations.

As it was, I had little to show financially for all the speaking and writing and editing and ministry and unrelated jobs I had cobbled together over the years to survive. I am chagrined to say I began to look with envy at those whose heterosexuality or closet or prior ordination or minimal visibility afforded them more profitable positions and opportunities in church work.  Underemployed men and women find it difficult to hold our heads high in a culture that not only views prosperity as a sign of worth, but advantages it.

Even leaders of my own LGBT community treated me as deficient because I did not have the title “reverend,” even though it was solely because I was out as a gay man. And younger people who were the beneficiaries of my and others’ early activism seemed to have little idea or care for who we were and what we had done.

In a dream I had, a colleague pushed me aside in favor of a new cause célebre, saying “You’re Old Testament!” implying the other was “New Testament.” By my opponents I had been accused of being a “militant,” while a leader in my own movement actually implied I was an “Uncle Tom.”

I had already stopped going to church, but for broader reasons than my denomination’s prejudices. It just wasn’t working for me anymore. The worship experience no longer inspired me. It did not help me think. It did not make me wonder. I found my morning-prayer time much more helpful.

I noticed a gnawing skepticism and cynicism growing within me by the second year after my great losses. My anger and impatience with the church and the government failing to recognize gay rights and marriages filled me with disgust for both. Saccharine-sweet people got on my nerves. I read most of Gore Vidal’s books, reveling in his cynicism about American society and culture, amused by his cutting remarks about “sky-god” religions. I had been quite the optimist all of my life. I was becoming a curmudgeon. The Psalmist captured my experience:

My heart grew embittered,

my affections dried up,

I was stupid and uncomprehending,

a clumsy animal in your presence.

Even so, I stayed in your presence,

you grasped me by the right hand;

you will guide me with advice,

and will draw me in the wake of your glory.

Psalm 73:21-24 (NJB)

“Even so, I stayed in your presence.” In my morning prayer, I discovered something new in one of Jesus’ parables, one that I had read dozens of times over the years and about which I had reservations. Jesus tells the story of a wedding feast to which the invited guests will not come. And I “heard” God saying to me, “Come in to the party.” Let go of your negative feelings, however justified you may feel in having them. “Come in to the party.” And that became my mantra whenever I sensed resentment, envy, bitterness, anger, or withdrawal bubbling up within me.

I remembered also the elder brother whose father begs him to “come in to the party” celebrating his prodigal brother’s return, and of the master who asserts his right to pay his kvetching servants equally though they were hired at different times of the day.

Believe it or not, this simple little phrase did much to get me over myself and into showing the proper reverence for the joy that is life, what the poet William Blake called “organized innocence” that can wonder at the world, play while experiencing suffering and addressing injustice, pray in the midst of distractions and disillusionment, achieve in the face of setbacks and failures, and love while enduring rejection and isolation.

“Come in to the party” is another way of hearing “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” This was and is the gospel Jesus and his followers proclaim in our better moments. “Come in to the party.”

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here. Thank you!

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers.

Copyright © 2014 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Violence--What to Do?

I’ll be guest speaker at the First Existentialist Congregation at 11 a.m. this Sunday, June 16, 2013, reflecting on “Spiritual Fathers and Mothers,” 470 Candler Park Dr. NE, Atlanta, GA 30307-2113.

I would think regular readers might have hoped for a little “bucking up” in this blog after one or more of the recent acts of violence we’ve experienced either firsthand or through the media. I did write about Newtown, but not about the Boston Marathon bombing. You see, West, Texas had their devastating explosion and Syria and Iraq were  experiencing deadly attacks about the same time, and I couldn’t ignore their suffering. Then the collapse of the garment factory in Bangladesh. And more recently we have the killer tornado of Moore, Oklahoma.

And these examples are simply set against the daily violence throughout the world among and between peoples, nations, and religions, not to mention the violence visited hourly upon the environment and animals and habitats.

I’d guess that in a single evening of watching television, from news to ubiquitous crime dramas, the average viewer witnesses more violence than many once experienced in a lifetime, save those in war zones or crime-ridden neighborhoods. What to do?

Can we adopt the position of a Buddha-like character in my (unpublished) mystery novel Angus Dei simply that “Violence is”? Philosophically that’s safer, until violence happens to us or those we care about.

Can we rise above violence? Given that violence may come with any vote, purchase, tax, commodity, meal, etc., rising above violence hardly seems possible. An average citizen and consumer may be as guilty of violence as any army of Genghis Khan!

And for Jesus, the mere thought was equivalent to the deed. I feel the most violent after watching the news: I know exactly what to do with or what should be done to opponents and oppressors, Congress and criminals. That’s why I try not to wield my sword—my pen or my computer—in the evening!

And, after reading the morning paper, that’s why I need morning prayer time to recover my equilibrium and recoup my energy and generosity.  Presently I am once again using the Psalms to do that, but I am jumping over the parts calling for vengeance or vindication or the destruction of enemies. My training suggests that this is politically or spiritually incorrect, as I should be praying the psalms on behalf of those who are crying out for justice at the expense of their oppressors. Though I do lift those enduring violence in prayer, after morning prayer I don’t want to feel like I do after the evening news or an episode of Criminal Minds or The Newsroom.

During a retreat I led, the most significant thing that got said came from a woman who had the “ah-hah” realization that she was spending so much time listing justice concerns in her prayers that she had no room for “resting in God.”

“When I awake I shall be filled with the vision of you,” Psalm 17:15b (NJB) greets God. This could be our mantra in preparation for facing the world.

Alongside the psalms I am using the contemporary “psalms” of J. Barrie Shepherd from his recent book Between Mirage and Miracle. In the aptly-titled “Catch of the Day—Chebeague Island, Maine,” he compares his morning prayer to lobster boats going out to sea at dawn: 

Their dream, as mine—

afloat upon a steep and surging mystery—

to lure and catch a portion of life’s bounty,

a momentary savoring, at least,

of an elusive sweetness that lies hidden

in the old, encircling deep.

  

Related posts:

Newtown to Newcountry? “We Must Change.”

A Pre-emptive Peace

Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite.

HAVE YOU MADE A DONATION TO THIS BLOG? THANK YOU!

To Stop and Think, Not Click and Link

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

On the occasion of passing the milestones of having had 10,000 hits (not including the 135 weekly subscribers) and six months of weekly blogging, I offer some thoughts about why I am doing this.

The artist who designed my website mentioned when helping me set up this blog site that she used the internet primarily for information, not contemplation, though she became my first subscriber. Probably most people use the internet for information, social and professional networking, their work, arts and entertainment, shopping, and, according to a recent study, a lot of pornography.

A fellow blogger who has encouraged me from the start and given me much useful counsel recently advised me to provide links in my posts. He was absolutely right about a post quoting a New York Times article, and right about the advantage of reciprocity (a link working both ways). But, as I told him, my purpose for this “contemplative blog” is to encourage readers to stop and think, not click and link. This goes against the grain of our ADHD cultural mindset.

Teresa of Avila warned against exchanging “the language of tranquility” for “the language of the world.” “Out goes peace and quiet for the soul and in comes a wearying restlessness,” she wrote in The Way of Perfection. And yet the sentence that follows suggests Teresa may have done quite well in our computer-driven, internet/Facebook/Twitter/texting age: “I only wish I could write with both of my hands, so I wouldn’t forget one thing while I’m writing down another!”

I began this blog partly because someone in publishing told me that there is no market for devotional materials among progressive Christians. I was told the same thing when I began writing prayers and meditations for the LGBT community, but have since published three such books that have enjoyed multiple printings, one of which has been translated into Spanish and now, on a daily basis, into Estonian. I’ve written two additional books of meditations for the general public, one of which is also available in Spanish.

My spiritual discipline of morning prayer has been encouraged by using contemporary and not so contemporary devotionals, so these ventures have been my way of encouraging others to do the same. Beginning my morning reflecting on the larger picture and greater purpose of life anchors me, as well as prompting mindfulness of those I will meet and things I will do that day.

I chose a weekly rather than daily format because I doubt anyone would want to hear from me every day! And because there is a plethora of “Monday morning” meditations available on the web, I chose “hump day”—Wednesday—as a good time to take a break and reflect. I’m glad and grateful that so many of you have joined me along the way. Thank you!