Living the Questions: Journeying into the Shadows of Death, Despair, and Meaninglessness

[[Sister Laurel, in your piece on Hiddenness and witnessing to the journey to deeper union with God, you quoted Merton on journeying in the desert area of the human heart. I wonder if you could say more about that? I was especially interested in Merton's description that he has been called to explore places most people were not able to visit except in the company of one's psychologist, and that they studiously avoid except in their nightmares. Is this the way you understand your vocation? Can you say more about this? I also wondered what Merton meant by saying that one cannot truly know hope unless one has found out how like despair hope is. Do you understand that?]]

These are particularly good questions, and I appreciate you asking them. Merton's quote here is dense and incredibly significant. It corresponds to the inner journey made by many contemplatives and hermits, and yes, I think I can explain some dimensions of it based on my own experience. Let me quote the entire passage and then comment on it in terms of two things: 1) becoming Emmanuel (God with Us) as we allow God to be Emmanuel, and 2) learning to be one who "lives the questions". These are two of the ways I understand the nature of eremitical life. Merton's passage reads:

When I first became a monk, yes, I was more sure of  'answers'. But as I grow old in the monastic life and advance further into solitude, I become aware that I have only begun to seek the questions. And what are the questions? Can man make sense out of his existence? Can man honestly give his life meaning merely by adopting a certain set of explanations which pretend to tell him why the world began and where it will end, why there is evil and what is necessary for a good life? My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit --- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by specters which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area, I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.

Sinful human beings are profoundly (existentially) alone and threatened by death and meaninglessness. Moreover, because of sin, we also experience estrangement from God even when personal sin is not a particular problem. (We experience this estrangement as a yearning for both being and meaning. This means we are hungry for and seek an ever fuller existence that is full of value and purpose.) We are taught that our lives are meaningful and precious, that we are made in the image of God, and so, that we are called to union with God. We are taught by Scripture (cf. Romans 8:26ff) that nothing at all can separate us from the love of God, and that the hope we are called to live is rooted in the Christ Event and the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Every religion or theology class we may take or have taken throughout our lives, every homily we hear, every conversation we may have with spiritual directors, every book or article on the Gospel we have read, serves in some way to affirm the truth that God is the ground and source of our lives and that ultimately, we cannot be separated from him. This means God is the ground and source of every potentiality, every talent, and gift we have. Further, God transcends any threat to being or meaning we might experience. All of this also means that the anxiety associated with the fact that our lives are marked and marred by finitude and sin (separation from God as ground and source of being and meaning), though these are real and a source of suffering, can be transformed into the peace of God whenever God is allowed to be Emmanuel.

The fact that we are made by and for God also means that without God, we are incomplete. The ways sin, death, and meaninglessness threaten us are reminders of both our need and hunger for the God who completes and makes us whole and wholly or exhaustively alive. All of the ways we seek to give our lives purpose, fulfill them, seek meaning, and create representations of and reflections on these things testify both to what we are made for and what we yet lack. As human beings in search of a more exhaustive being and meaning, that is, as people seeking fullness of life in, with, and through God, we are like questions in search (and in need) of a completing and illuminating answer. Ironically, only once a question is paired with its truest answer can we truly see the full sense, depths, and significance of the question. Only when the answer is provided do we have a complete articulation of the truth. Similarly, it is only when we begin to have a sense of the answer that we find the courage to pose the question as radically as we really need and are called to do. And this is especially true with the question that we each are and the answer God represents.

It is in our hearts that we hear and struggle with the questions that are part of our being human and made for God. It is in the desert of the human heart that we know the questions that excite and propel us further towards transcendence and those that agonize us with apparent absurdity, loss, limitation, disappointment, contradiction, and crisis. It is in the human heart that we sin against others and, in the process, betray ourselves, those others, and our God as well. Here we make ourselves not just a question, but questionable. Here we battle with demons and seek out angels; here we embrace, then reject idols, and seek the real God even more intensely and profoundly. And in all of this struggle, seeking, and questioning, it is in the human heart that we pose the question of the truth of ourselves and of God, and eventually, that we can discover the union that exists deeper than any brokenness, distortion, or estrangement we might also know or have known.

Thomas Merton knew all of this very well, and as he journeyed more deeply into solitude, he did as every hermit is called to do and began to explore the desert of his own heart. Merton understood that most folks do not make this same journey as consistently or as profoundly as a monk or hermit is called to do. Such a journey is entirely too demanding, too painful, and in any case, everyday life and responsibilities prevent it. This is part of the reason eremitical vocations are seen as second-half-of-life vocations. They arise out of deeper questioning and seeking, out of a more profound posing of the question of self in conjunction with a relatively mature sense of the answer that (who) is God. Eremitism is embraced as a full-time commitment to seek and receive or be received by God, which also necessarily means posing the question of one's own existence as profoundly as one can while remaining open to the answer**. The question of God is not an abstract one. It is a deeply personal question requiring our entire commitment and the exploration of a whole life's experience. This is what canon 603 refers to as a life of assiduous prayer and penance. We approach this question existentially, understanding that the answer is something we must also come to know experientially. Dogma and doctrine, no matter how true and important they are, are not the answer our existence ultimately requires. Only God Godself is the true answer.

I believe that my vocation is about letting God love me as exhaustively as he wills to do. This means opening myself to and allowing God to be Emmanuel in the same way Jesus did, and doing so in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe another way of saying this and describing the self-emptying this requires is to define eremitical life as one of living the questions as deeply and exhaustively as I can. In my own experience, this involves journeying into the shadows of meaninglessness, near-despair, and death. Only the Holy Spirit, I believe, gives a person the power (courage) to make such a journey. Thus, Merton speaks of nightmares, or specters, that persons studiously avoid except, perhaps, when working with their psychologist (I would add "with one's spiritual director" here). To pose the question of oneself in all of the ways that question is raised throughout one's life, and to do so ever more profoundly, prepares us to receive God (or, more truly, to be received by God) as the answer. For that reason, it prepares us to receive the ground and source of all hope as well. I believe this is what Merton meant by saying how like despair hope really is. 

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** Here I am thinking of Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the cross. In this moment, Jesus posed the question he was as deeply as possible and remained open to allowing God to be the answer that He would be. On the cross of Christ, the human question (which is also the question of God!) is posed as radically as we will ever see it posed. At that moment, Jesus stood at the doorway of death, despair, and meaninglessness, and was open to God as the only adequate and completing answer. This openness is not assured in most of us, and we can struggle to "achieve" or allow it as our inner journey into the shadows and darkness deepens, but it is this openness or "obedience" that was key to (God's) transforming the cross into the very center of redemptive and revelatory history. I would not be surprised if Thomas Merton had been reflecting on the same event as well as his own profound experiences in solitude as he wrote what he did on the relation and likeness of despair and hope.

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I will need to reflect on and address this in further posts, but Merton's quotation, and my own understanding of the reason for this contemplative vocation to "live the questions," in the very heart of the Church is precisely so that the experience of God's sustaining love is witnessed to as the assured answer to the human question each of us is. Dogma and Doctrine proclaim this in many ways. The Scriptures witness to and proclaim this truth in the proclamation of a crucified Jesus' resurrection, and perhaps most powerfully in Paul's affirmation in Romans 8:31-39. Merton makes the point that sometimes this is simply not enough for those seeking being and meaning. Experience is necessary. I would also point out that the hermit makes this journey for the sake of others as well as herself, first for God's sake, then for the Church whose task is the mediation of this reality (Emmanuel) to the world, and finally, for the sake of all those whose existential questions require encouragement and, above all, a source of hope.

Once Again: On Maintaining Hope in the Face of the Demonic

 In my last couple of posts, I wrote about maintaining hope and being those who already have a king and are not looking for another one. I want to reemphasize all that I said there and maybe push that a bit further here. I would especially like to sharpen my thoughts on what it means to be a hope-filled people of prayer and love with Christ as their King when our focus and attention is constantly drawn to Trump into a kind of mesmerism or fascination by the tragedy to democracy he represents.

When Trump was elected president this time, I promised myself I would not watch the news much. I heard a couple of other friends were attempting the same thing. As I wrote to my director last week, "That has pretty much gone by the wayside." I did not make this promise because I believed that hermits should be completely separated from all of that or insulated from the truth of this world and its needs. I don't believe that at all. It was that I remembered the way the news of Trump's blundering and self-centered (narcissistic) excesses and stupidities began to take over the last time Trump was elected, rather like a terrible accident makes it almost impossible to look anywhere else or remain sufficiently about my own life and ministry; I didn't want that to happen again. After all, my life has a very real focus and it is not Trump. In fact, my baptism and eremitic consecration, the canon that governs my life, my vows, my Rule of Life, my own conscience, and daily praxis, all tell me it must not be Trump!  

And yet, the unprecedented nature, quality, and degree of the chaos and destruction Trump/Musk is visiting upon our country and the world around us makes it almost impossible not to be sucked into focusing our gaze and energies on him. I believe this same tendency to lose our real focus, our life-giving and meaning-conferring focus is what makes hope so difficult to maintain at this time as well. So how do we hold these two competing foci together without relinquishing the real telos (intention and goal) of our lives? How do we keep ourselves from losing ourselves? Is there anything in Scripture or our Christian Tradition that can help us here? Several things come immediately to mind: 1) the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert, 2) Jesus' continuing ministry and teaching in the face of political and religious threats to his life, 3) canon 603's requirements of stricter separation from the world and assiduous prayer and penance, and 4) the desert Abbas' and Ammas' tradition of battle with demons as intrinsic to the spiritual life. I want to look at all of these over the next days, but for now I want to start with number 3.

Hermits are called to embrace a stricter separation from the world at the same time they embrace a life of assiduous prayer and penance. This dynamic can be misunderstood as implying we simply close the hermitage, convent, or monastery door on the entire world outside us. But "world" in the sense used by canon 603 means "that which is resistant to Christ" and can also be understood to mean "that which promises fulfillment apart from Christ."  At the same time, the hermit is called upon to be hospitable and to open her door to anyone who should come knocking in search of food, rest, a word (from God), or whatever the hermit can provide to ease their journey. This might look like a conflict, but really, it is a paradox. The hermit is one who offers hospitality to God in every way God can come to the hermit. This means first of all she lives a life of assiduous prayer and penance in the silence of solitude, and then too, a life open to anyone in whom God might dwell (and who might be served in their vocation to make that more real by the hermit's hospitality). Both pieces of eremitical life must be preserved by the hermit in a single focus on openness to the presence and sovereignty of God. After all, this is who she is!

As I look at this paradoxical set of values and responsibilities and the task of maintaining an appropriate focus, it reminds me very much of the way we must handle the situation in which we in the US find ourselves today. We cannot shut our doors and windows to the evil happening beyond our hermitage boundaries, but neither can we fling them open so wide that the hermitage ceases to be what it is, namely, a place where God is hosted and may also be found by others. In other words, we must maintain our focus on God and hospitality to God so that God might truly be Lord of this world and transform it with (his) presence. If we can retain this focus, so too can we look evil full in the face and make decisions on what more we are called to do. But what does this mean? How do we do this?

In my life, it means to pray both directly before and after I watch the news. What I have begun to do is to pray quietly before watching the news and read and meditate on Gospel stories afterward. (So far, favorites include the story of the Good Samaritan and Christ's temptation in the desert. I will move on to others as these cease to nourish and strengthen me so much (one story I am sure I will be spending time with is Jesus' trial before Pilate and the conversation he held with Pilate there!). The idea is not to cede President Trump much real estate in my head or heart so that I don't become a kind of satellite of his narcissism; it is to maintain my focus on Christ, and on all those who are suffering in light of the current political situation the US finds themselves in and whom I might serve. In a very real way, it helps ensure I do not lose myself or my integrity to the soul-devouring emptiness and heartlessness we know as Donald Trump and those sycophants who cater to him. This praxis helps me to remain myself and strengthens my identity as imago Christi; in other words, it helps me to live to serve Jesus as Lord and King as the person I am called to be.

Some people will find their own focus and necessary praxis will differ from mine but their goal will largely be the same. A constitutional lawyer may make sure his/her attention is on the law, on statutes they have not paid attention to for some time and on working directly for the constitutional democracy that is currently endangered. A poet or musician will spend time writing and reading poetry, or listening to and playing music even more assiduously than they perhaps did in less chaotic times. All of us will try to be a positive presence contributing what we can for the sake of our world, especially those looking for a way to maintain hope. Again, the point is to not cede President Trump/Musk personal "real estate" in our minds and hearts as we entertain and are strengthened in the real values and relationships with those we are called to serve. This, I sincerely believe, is an instance of what c 603 calls "stricter separation from the world"!

For Christians, then, I believe the approach I suggest above will be helpful. We have one Lord and it is not Trump (or Trump/Musk)! We must be careful that Trump's vacuous heart does not suck us up into his orbit! Karl Barth once famously remarked that when he did theology he kept a newspaper on one corner of his desk and a Bible on the other. What I am suggesting is a variation on that. We must be informed. We must watch the news!! But we must first of all be persons of the Book, persons who live from and for the good news of Jesus Christ, persons for whom Jesus is the image of the humanity and lord of the Kingdom we are called to represent. As I said in my post on maintaining hope, we must be persons of prayer, both to help immunize us from and sensitize us to the evil we will meet and, of course, to inspire us to lovingly work for the good of all in the face of such evil and the suffering it brings.

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Postscript: I use the term demonic rarely and cautiously; when I do, as in the title of this piece, it is usually in the sense that Paul Tillich used the term, namely, for the distortion of the sacred in the direction of evil or non-being. Human persons are sacred as is all of God's creation. When the telos (intention and goal) of that creation is raised to its highest potential, there we have the holy. When it is emptied of goodness and its potential (for life, truth, beauty, future, meaning, etc.) is otherwise distorted in the direction opposing its created or God-endowed nature, there we have the demonic. Any great gift of God can be perfected towards real holiness or distorted in the direction of the demonic. The same is certainly true of persons as a whole. When this happens, especially when it is accompanied by great power along with messianic trappings and delusions, we begin to see a reality some identify as antiChrist.

King of Kings and Lord of Lords

In these days when it is so difficult to maintain hope and when we find our hope is not unalloyed but is instead a mixture of grief and grace, I thought the following version of Handel's Halleluia Chorus was most appropriate. It reminds us that the most fundamental truth is the sovereignty of God in Christ and we are those called to serve this One God who will one day be all in all, this overarching hope. I sincerely hope it will give you a laugh, bring a smile, a bit of respite, and maybe a reminder that we are stronger than we sometimes know and more creative as well. Most importantly, we already have a King and are not looking for another one!

How do we Maintain Hope in These Days?

[[ Sister Laurel, given everything that is happening in the country right now, how do we hang onto hope? I know it is supposed to be a jubilee year focused on hope, but how do we do that? I am so scared and depressed that I don't have a drop of optimism left in my body!!]]

Your questions are good ones, thanks for asking! There are two critical things to remember when we think about hope. The first is that hope is not the same as optimism. One can be a person steeped in hope without being particularly optimistic. Given the situation in the country currently, it is really difficult to be optimistic. So many people are being hurt by the completely careless and blind, not to mention the illegal actions of President Trump,  Elon Musk, and his DOGE actors, it is hard to be optimistic about anything that is going on. It gets even more difficult when we consider that working through the situation will take time and become even more critical and complex as that goes by.

The second critical thing to remember is that hope is always based on reality and rooted in truth. It is not about wishfulness. It is the attitude of someone who knows that they stand firmly in something that is strong and certain, even when there is little to be optimistic about. Christians hope in Christ and the victory Jesus won over sin and death. We hope because we know that God's love is stronger than death and that the evil human beings do will never have the final word.  We trust in that!  As you can see, I think, it is possible to have hope and not be particularly optimistic. After all, sin and death are still with us, yet at the same time they have ultimately been defeated and one day will be no more. We look forward to that day and we do so by staying in touch with the sovereignty of God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit that is real right here and right now.

As I have written many times over the years, reality is ambiguous. In the days of the Reformation, we heard the reformers speak of Christians as both sinner and justified. We recognize today that heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and at the same time God is not yet all in all. In other words, the world is ambiguous; it is both justified and sinful, both good and flawed, godly and godless until God does become all in all. To be people of hope means to be people who live in light of what God has already done in Christ and who also look forward to what will one day be fully realized. We work toward that reality, not in terms of wishfulness, but because of what is already true. 

So, how do we maintain hope? We do it by staying in touch with the living Christ. We do it by recognizing that Christ is truly sovereign and is rightly treated as the sovereign of this world who, we affirm, is seated at the right hand of God. We do it by remaining aware of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Father and Son who enlivens and empowers us in this way. Hope is very much the result of a living faith in a similarly living God. Thus, to be people of hope we must be people of prayer --- not in the sense of asking God to take away our troubles (though we will certainly pour out our hearts to God), but in the sense of allowing a growing intimacy with that God and all a relationship with God brings into our lives. 

To be people of hope is to be people who allow God to love us, and in allowing that, to become ever more aware of the unconquerable power of that love. This is what Jesus knew intimately and exhaustively; he knew his Abba's love in a way that saw it overcoming both sin and death. Granted, Jesus' trust in his Abba's love did not prevent the worst that human beings could do, but it did allow that love's victory over this-worldly realities. That, by the way, also means it is crucial to take all the action we can legitimately do to remain involved and working towards the goals we recognize as supporting our democracy (or in other situations, any of the values we truly support). In other words, we must be persons of love as well as of hope; we must be people who are committed to doing a justice which is rooted in and helps strengthen both of these. As Christians, we continue to act and work toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. No, we don't build that Kingdom ourselves, but wherever the goals of that Kingdom overlap with the goals of this world --- for instance, in making sure our country maintains its focus on the dignity of every person by working for a world where every person is a genuine neighbor whose fundamental needs are met wherever we can assist with this --- we work towards an ethos Jesus would delight in and give his entire life to and for. Maintaining hope requires all of this.

Madman or Messiah? In the Darkness We Wait in Hope (Reprise)

I admit that a pet peeve of mine associated with celebrating the Triduum in a parish setting is the inadequate way folks handle what should be periods of silence after Holy Thursday's Mass and reservation of the Eucharist and the stations and celebration of Jesus' passion on Good Friday. Unnecessary conversations, hearty and premature  wishes of "Happy Easter" in the sacristy or upon leaving the Church and parking lot immediately after the Passion drive me more than a little crazy --- not only because we have only just celebrated the death of Jesus, but because there is a significant period of grief and uncertainty that we call Holy Saturday still standing between Jesus' death and his resurrection.

Silence is appropriate during these times; Easter is still distant. Allowing ourselves to live with something of the terrible disappointment and critical questions Jesus' disciples experienced as their entire world collapsed is a significant piece of coming to understand why we call today "Good" and tomorrow "Holy." It is important to appreciating the meaning of this three day liturgy we call Triduum and a dimension of coming to genuine and deepening hope. I have often thought the Church could do better with its celebration of Holy Saturday, but spending some time waiting and reflecting on who we would be (not to mention who God would be!) had Jesus stayed good and dead is something Good Friday (essentially beginning after Holy Thursday Mass) and Holy Saturday (beginning the evening after the passion) call for.

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In explaining the theology of the Cross, Paul once said, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." During Holy Week, the Gospel readings focus us on the first part of Paul's statement. Sin has increased to an extraordinary extent and the one people touted as the Son of God has been executed as a blaspheming godforsaken criminal. We watched the darkness and the threat to his life grow and cast the whole of Jesus' life into question.

In the Gospel for last Wednesday we heard John's version of the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the prediction of Peter's denials as well. For weeks before this we had been hearing stories of a growing darkness and threat centered on the person of Jesus. Pharisees and Scribes were irritated and angry with Jesus at the facile way he broke Sabbath rules or his easy communion with and forgiveness of sinners. That he spoke with an authority the people recognized as new and surpassing theirs was also problematical. Family and disciples failed to understand him, thought him crazy, urged him to go to Jerusalem to work wonders and become famous.

Even his miracles were disquieting, not only because they increased the negative reaction of the religious leadership and the fear of the Romans as the darkness and threat continued to grow alongside them, but because Jesus himself seems to give us the sense that they are insufficient  and lead to misunderstandings and distortions of who he is or what he is really about. "Be silent!" we often hear him say. "Tell no one about this!" he instructs in the face of the increasing threat to his life. Futile instructions, of course, and, as those healed proclaim the wonders of God's grace in their lives, the darkness and threat to Jesus grows; The night comes ever nearer and we know that if evil is to be defeated, it must occur on a much more profound level than even thousands of such miracles.

In the last two weeks of Lent, the readings give us the sense that the last nine months of Jesus' life and active ministry were punctuated by retreat to a variety of safe houses as the priestly aristocracy actively looked for ways to kill him. He attended festivals in secret and the threat of stoning recurred again and again. Yet, inexplicably "He slipped away" we are told or, "They were unable to find an opening." The darkness is held at bay, barely. It is held in check by the love of the people surrounding Jesus. Barely. And in the last safe house on the eve of Passover as darkness closes in on every side Jesus celebrated a final Eucharist with his friends and disciples. He washed their feet, reclined at table with them like free men did. And yet, profoundly troubled, Jesus spoke of his impending betrayal by Judas. None of the disciples, not even the beloved disciple understood what was happening. There is one last chance for Judas to change his mind as Jesus hands him a morsel of bread in friendship and love. God's covenant faithfulness is maintained.

But Satan enters Judas' heart and a friend of Jesus becomes his accuser --- the meaning of the term Satan here --- and the darkness enters this last safe house of light and friendship, faith and fellowship. It was night, John says. It was night. Judas' heart is the opening needed for the threatening darkness to engulf this place and Jesus as well. The prediction of Peter's denials tells us this "night" will get darker and colder and more empty yet.  But in John's story, when everything is at its darkest and lowest, Jesus exclaims in a kind of victory cry: [[ Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him!]] Here as darkness envelopes everything, Jesus exults that authentically human being is revealed, made known and made real in space and time; here, in the midst of  the deepening "Night" God too is revealed and made fully known and real in space and time. It is either the cry of a messiah who will overcome evil right at its heart --- or it is the cry of a madman who cannot recognize or admit the victory of evil as it swallows him up. In the midst of these days of death and vigil, we do not really know which. At the end of these three days we call Triduum we will see what the answer is.

Today, the Friday we call "Good," the darkness intensified. During the night Jesus was arrested and "tried" by the Sanhedrin with the help of false witnesses, desertion by his disciples, and Judas' betrayal. Today he was brought before the Romans, tried, found innocent, flogged in an attempt at political appeasement and then handed over anyway by a fearful self-absorbed leader whose greater concern was for his own position to those who would kill him. There was betrayal, of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship and covenantal bonds on every side but God's. The night continued to deepen and the threat could not be greater.  Jesus was crucified and eventually cried out his experience of abandonment even by God. He descended into the ultimate godlessness, loneliness, and powerlessness we call hell. The darkness became almost total. We ourselves can see nothing else. That is where Good Friday and Holy Saturday leave us.

And the question these events raises haunts the night and our own minds and hearts: namely, messiah or madman? Is Jesus simply another person crushed by the cold, emptiness, and darkness of evil --- good and wondrous though his own works were? (cf Gospel for last Friday: John 10:31-42.) Is this darkness and emptiness the whole of the reality in which we live? Was Jesus' preaching of the reality of God's reign and his trust in God in vain? Is the God he proclaimed, the God in whom we also trust incapable of redeeming failure, sin and death --- even to the point of absolute lostness? Does he consign sinners to these without real hope because God's justice differs from his mercy? The questions associated with Jesus' death on the Cross multiply and we Christians wait in the darkness today and tomorrow. We fast and pray and try to hold onto hope that the one we called messiah, teacher, friend, beloved,  brother and Lord, was not simply deluded --- or worse --- and that we Christians are not, as Paul puts the matter, the greatest fools, the most pitiable of all.

We have seen sin increase to immeasurable degrees; and though we do not see how it is possible we would like to think that Paul was right and that grace will abound all the more. But on this day we call "good" and on the Saturday we call "holy" we wait. Bereft, but hopeful, we wait.