The Darkness

It was dark when I got up this morning for my daily walk – it has been over a week since I have done this and I was hoping that it would help combat some of the weariness that has found residence in my soul.  I overextended myself this summer and what I thought would be a good distraction is turning out to backfire…..I suppose I should back my story up a little.    

I have spent the past year walking a journey of what Christian culture calls transformation.  When those in leadership preach on the term it seems so innocuous – so innocent – so safe.  The truth is it is a journey back into the darkness of one’s soul revisiting places of pain that have long been cut off  – places that are so infected with toxins that opening them up is like releasing a contagion back into your very existence that births one thought, will my faith survive. The anguish that attends this process is excruciating and if bottled could take a family of rhinoceros down.  Coupling this with the academic expedition through seminary; one that is specifically designed to deconstruct, has left the foundations of my life in constant movement – what I am calling my emotional and theological earthquake.  This is testing the very core of who I am. 

I have faced severe trials in the past – those that have ended other people’s lives both literally and figuratively.  Nonetheless, this time is calling for me to pull on internal resources that I sometimes wonder if I possess.  The tentacles of agony grab and drag me down at the most inconvenient times.  I sometimes find myself crumpled in a corner like yesterday’s dirty laundry tears pouring from a place so dim it oozes from every pore making it difficult to breath.  Yet, this is not the darkness I experienced before – the sable that permeated much of my youth.  I have been blinded by evil’s sinister fingers where the daytime is as black as a starless night; where everything is obscured by a veil of hopelessness concealing any of life’s beauty.  I have been imprisoned by shadow’s nefarious claws that bound me to a deep depression and I have been held captive in desperation’s dark dungeon entombed with no way out.   But this is different…. 

As I walked this morning I thought back upon a recent conversation with a friend in which we shared intimacies about our past.  Both of us had been bound by despair and our shared experience had me reflecting on what I am going through.  This journey is the testing of everything that I believe about God, people and myself.  The structure of my life has scaffolding surrounding it and the foundations have been unearthed.  This has me in a place of extreme vulnerability and one that sometimes suggests that the darkness will once again overtake me.  But that is a lie.  I am intimately familiar with darkness – I know it like a wife knows her husband.  I know it like others will thankfully never know it.  I possess an understanding of its nature that has not; nor will it ever fully disappear from my soul.  It has left its indelible handprint on me like a tattoo that has been permanently etched into my skin.  However, the darkness overextended itself.  In its quest to destroy my life it underestimated one thing…… the nail shaped scars that cover those handprints allowing for the light to shine hope back into my soul.

Solidarity

I should be sitting here finishing up my Matthew outline, but I can no longer in good conscience keep silent.  A good friend of mine and Christian brother has been navigating an extremely painful journey of healing; along with facing an astronomical crisis of faith while attending seminary.  He has been particularly transparent in the process; blogging for a wide variety of reasons.  Mainly to come to terms with questions that erupt from a place of such deep agony that only one who has been to hell and back can understand.  At the same time he has had the brave tenacity to often move against the tide of popular opinion; while at the same time holding onto a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe; he will find a place of peace and encounter the God we as Christians are all so quick to protect.

I have respectfully watched him knowing that he has the resolve to do what most find difficult – to be publically vulnerable and transparent in the midst of internal torment.  Those who have not traveled a similar road cannot begin to comprehend the weight of shame carried by those who have suffered abuse in all its varying forms; and how that keeps so very many silent and hidden in plain sight.  For this friend to put himself in the firing line in the midst of this type of struggle is admirable to say the least and heroic in terms of his Christian faith.  It is his example that gave me the courage to open up to my own soul’s deepest darkest dwelling places; which had been encased in steel, in order to let the poisonous demons (for lack of a better metaphor) out into the light. 

Many of you are not aware of the traumatic past I have experienced and the journey of restoration I have been navigating since becoming a Christian.  Even now - especially now, I am choosing not to write about these experiences due to my own level of vulnerability, quest for healing and unanswered questions.  It is not that I have not shared my story with some – I have.  However there is a huge difference in reporting incidents and the gut wrenching experience of sharing the deepest emotions of what has been done to you.  The fragility and exposure is excruciating to say the very least.  I have spent the greater portion of the past school year in hours of torturous prayer, writing and sharing some of the most deeply held pain with the people I finally found safe enough to open myself up to; a blog subject in and of itself.

Those who have not faced crisis of epic proportions or lived with unbearable pain are blessed and have been spared….for now.  With that comes a naïve view of the world – one that platitudes and pat answers often satisfy.  No matter how hard one tries to step out of that place of innocence; through education and/or heartfelt sincere desire, one can never fully understand the solitary journey it is until they face their own dark crossroad.  This has me ask the question of why we talk at one another about experiences we know nothing about.  Why we are so quick to talk at all rather than listen and hear the cry of the broken heart?  At a particularly dark point in my journey I was railing at God, railing at the church and especially railing at the trite answers people had continually given me in response to my pain.  A friend of mine who had the fortitude to sit with me in that deeply black place validated my feelings by saying; ‘platitudes are words that don’t give room for brokenness’.  How healing those nine little words were.  What they said was, I hear you.  

I have watched some push back against my friend with what I perceive to be an agenda of furthering their own theological position/worldview rather than listening to his heart.  I know as one who has traveled the tumultuous road of restoration, being heard is much more healing than finding answers.  No one has a right to dictate the acceptable avenue one should take in order to process their personal pain, nor does anyone have a right to stand in judgment of decisions made in order to obtain healing.  Those who have not lived with intolerable burdens do not fully understand how isolating an experience it is.  The only two that have experienced this journey; know its unique obstacles are the sufferer and God - they should be the ones to determine what is in the best interest for deliverance.  I stand in solidarity with you brother as you make choices that bring healing to your soul.