People keep telling me this is a “murky season” spiritually. We grope for clarity, for hope, for the Light shining in the darkness. During this long pandemic season, so fraught with social unrest and losses of all kinds, I’ve been amazed that contemplative time with other people—over the phone and by Zoom—have been rich despite physical absence. You may have discovered this, too. Now that we’re venturing out from quarantine, we do so with caution and also with hope of holding onto the gifts of the pandemic.
All the spiritual direction groups I lead have been on Zoom, and most of the one-on-one direction sessions have been by phone. Embodied intimacy is missed, but interior intimacy has been augmented. Deep calls to deep in the roar of the pandemic—or so I’ve experienced it. I’ve come to believe that this new intimacy is due to our quarantine vulnerability which is held within the structure provided by contemplative listening, as well as by God’s all-surrounding grace. The relationship of loving listening becomes a safe holding environment for our tender souls.
On the Zoom screen at New College Berkeley retreats, we’ve been a community of solitaries, like some monks I know who each live in their own private cells in a monastery, joined in prayer, yet usually separate. During the pandemic we’ve been in our solitary spaces, and during the retreats and group meetings we catch glimpses of the private, personal space of other people through the wonder of Zoom. (A cat might even make a languorous appearance.) Dialing in from our homes, we’re more vulnerable than if we were together as usual, having driven through traffic to gather. At home and (possibly) wearing slippers, we’re open to one another in new ways.
When I’ve met with people for individual spiritual direction this year, we, too, have been isolated and sequestered. Our social skins have thinned, rendering us more sensitive and reactive, sometimes in unpleasant ways. Having a person come to the front door is rattling: Where’s my mask? Is the visitor sufficiently masked and distant?
The social, political tumult of the past year has left our nerves more exposed and has moved many of us to engage in painful soul-searching. How does racism lurk in my mind and heart? I ask, many of us ask. How can I listen well to someone who holds political views diametrically opposed to my own? I ask, many of us ask.
The vulnerability has its blessings, these soul-searching questions among them. Being less defended also makes it possible for us to open our hearts more deeply to the Holy One, which may include expressing some unpleasant feelings in prayer.
Throughout the pandemic many people have sought closeness with God through the conversational and contemplative art of spiritual direction, which can be a lifeline in untethered times. Someone else is willing to hear us in all our vulnerability and disorientation, and that person is listening for God in our lives, trusting that God is near. I’ve witnessed this as I listen to the spiritual directors serving New College’s ministry.
I’ve also been grateful for my own spiritual director during this year. When the conversation begins, I often ramble for quite a few minutes before I get to the place where story starts to form. As I relax into the contemplative experience, I find a remarkable spaciousness which strikes me as even wider than when my spiritual director and I meet together in person. Over the phone, I sense my director right next to me, in my ear, in my home. I hear her breathing.
As she listens, deep feelings and images stir in me, becoming story as I share them with her and with God, who I trust is ever-present and seems palpably so through my director’s accompaniment. People I love have died during this year. I grieve the absence of those friends and also grieve the missed opportunities to hug and weep with others who loved them.
Enforced solitude and my greater vulnerability have augmented feelings which can be piercing. Creating stories from them offers some solace. Story-telling and story-listening are crucial aspects of our spiritual formation. With my director, I shape the narrative of my soul and my life. I begin to see more clearly who I am while I’m listened to by a loving person who acknowledges God.
The Indo-European etymological root of the word “narrative” is “gna.” It shows up in the Greek word “Gnostic” and our English word “knowledge.” Narrative is knowledge. We discover who we are through stories, both stories received and stories told. Jesus was a story-teller and story-listener. In Eugene Peterson’s translation of Mark 4:33-34, we read:
With many stories… [Jesus] presented his message to them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity. He was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, sorting out the tangles, untying the knots. (Mark 4:33-34; MSG)
Jesus told stories and also elicited the stories of those around him, helping them to sort out tangles and discover how their/our stories are shaped by the presence of the Holy One. In that loving relationship they, and we with them, just might see how the Holy One’s story is given in a way that matches their/our experience and maturity..
During the pandemic I’ve listened to many honest stories about desires and griefs. One particular story lingers poignantly. A pastor who sees me for direction has been isolated and often depressed in quarantine. Occasionally the directee—who also works with a therapist—experiences an ominous darkness.
In our times of spiritual direction, I try to notice the whole truth—hope and fear, faith and doubt, desire and sometimes despair. This is part of our conversation on a morning last winter:
Directee: I’m enveloped in darkness. In the darkness, I find it hard to remember the ways God has been with me. In the light, I find God in Scripture, nature, people, prayer…. That escapes me in the dark. No sense of God. The darkness feels thick and heavy.
[My thoughts: “This darkness is real and so painful. O God, help me acknowledge it and not dismiss it with a theological platitude, even as I do hold hope that the suffering is not the whole story.”]
Susan: The darkness can be so painfully empty. It feels like a place apart from where you’ve often experienced God with you, in the light…It sounds as though you’re wondering where God is when you’re in the darkness.
D: [Silence ] …. Yes [whispered]. [More silence. I waited. After a time, I heard…] I sense it now. It’s an exquisite darkness.
S: Exquisite darkness….
[My mind went to Isaiah. 45:3:
I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord,
Who call you by your name,
Am the God of Israel.
[I didn’t say the words out loud, but I prayed them.]
The directee continued:
D: Yes! “Exquisite darkness.” That’s what came to me in the silence. As we talk now, I know that it’s dark. It’s still dark. But there’s a kind of light. There’s a sense of Presence.
S: Even in the darkness, there’s light…. And presence. You’re not alone.
D: Yes…. I want to just hold this in silence now.
In the silence, I felt close to the directee and close to God. I admired the way the directee faced the darkness and experienced its heaviness. As we were together yet not together in person, God was in person, as it were, with both of us.
Holding our phones to our ears, we were practically in each other’s heads, as though my directee were pressed against me. I closed my eyes and rested in the rich, lively silence of exquisite darkness. I felt I could see it and sense its luminescence even with my eyes closed.
During that hour, the Spirit was tending to me as well as to the directee. My own story was that only hours before this conversation, a friend had called in the darkness before dawn so that I could be with her as she was with her dying father, also a beloved friend of mine. Because death was near, she’d been allowed into the COVID-quarantined care facility. Following a long illness, her father had just breathed his final breaths. I listened to his daughter breathing and weeping.
In the darkness with my friend, I registered the exquisiteness which the directee, later, so aptly named. It was as if the other person—each of them that morning—had escorted me into a personal darkness. As we strengthened one another by our closeness, our eyes acclimated to the darkness, as eyes do on a moonless night. Slowly we began to see the pinprick lights of the stars. We developed night vision, and saw God’s grace descend on us like starlight.
The directee said that even in the dark, there was light. “And presence.” That Presence made the darkness exquisite. My directee’s words carried God’s grace to the depths of my own heartache over my friend’s death. The Light that penetrates the darkness was not overcome.
This experience of exquisite darkness can happen in solitude. More often, I think, it’s experienced with the right kind of accompaniment. Join us this coming year at New College Berkeley, in classes, spiritual direction groups, and the Spiritual Exercises, as you gather with others to seek the Light in this murky season.
Susan S. Phillips (Ph.D.) is Executive Director and Professor of Sociology and Christianity at New College Berkeley and a member of the Graduate Theological Union’s Core Doctoral Faculty.