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Reading in the
dark
September 9, 2007
Some of you will have read about the publication of Mother Teresa’s private
letters. Apparently they spanned more than 60 years of her life and were written
to her Confessors and spiritual advisors.
The Time
article
seemed very wide ranging. And Get Religion had some interesting blogs on
it here and
here.
The discussion about her private letters raises lots of questions. The first one
that came to my mind was whether we should read the private letters of someone
who had asked that the letters be destroyed and that they not be published. Is
it voyeuristic to read this kind of thing? Looking but not exposing ourselves to
the person?
Others may say that we gain the same insight as we would if the person had
published them. At the level of what we gain, that may be true. The church, I
suppose, would argue that she was their servant in life and in death, and they
could over-rule her wishes. But the potential readers of her letters have to
decide whether their ethics allows them to agree with that argument.
One of the issues debated in the discussion concerns the so-called “dark night
of the soul”. Many Christians have a sense of loss or failure in their
relationship with God. What began as an enthusiastic and warm devotion often
turns into something else. Bitterness, emptiness, a sense of God’s absence, a
feeling that he no longer pays attention to us.
For some Christians this change of outlook corresponds with a trauma or
disappointment. For others the change happens when fresh enthusiasm is replaced
by serious hard-fought perseverance in the face of difficult circumstances.
Indeed as far as I can see any long term serving of the Lord requires
persistence and mental and spiritual toughness.
One of the difficulties is to know what to make of our perceptions that God is
distant, not interested, not answering our prayers. Of course we may just be
depressed. More seriously we may be disappointed or angry with God. Or we may be
the kind of person who has a strong awareness of our feelings.
The advantage of the awareness that we feel God is distant, is that it helps us
understand the basis for our faith. That humans don’t live by bread alone but by
every word that comes from the mouth of God. It is not our perceptions and
awareness that form the basis of our faith, but what God says.
God is never absent, never forgets us, never abandons us. And he has published
public documents he wants us to read that allow us to hear again what he says,
and rely on him to keep his word, even in the dark.
Dale
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