The darknight of the soul and silence.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post-- Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979
I found this article about Mother Teresa, and her extreme spiritual struggles, particularly heartening. (Not disheartening or as proof of no God, as Christopher Hitchins purports in the article.1)
I know that silence. I have my own struggles, as does any Christian. I just think that someone like Mother Teresa was some kind of person higher than I, that she'd arrived at a place where she did not doubt, that she heard from God daily, that her strength arose from constant contact and two-way conversation. That God clearly marked her path for her and that she was sure she was on the right way.
What is silence, when you are not alone?
Is it yes? Is it no? Is it just wait? Is it disapproval? Is it a sign of deafness? Is it about not understanding? Is it a sign of great distance? Of being left behind? Is it what God knows best in a way we can't understand, never having existed or looked into a great void before we existed? Is it to be feared? To struggle through? A sign to stop? To go away? To stay? Is it being ignored? Is it the language of time? A kind of filter for truth? The way to discover strength?
Silence, whether in relation to God or another human being, is deafening. Perhaps even worse than constant chatter.
1 I don't believe in Christopher Hitchins, just as I don't believe in Richard Dawkins.
Labels: discussion, religion
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 8/23/2007 01:08:00 PM
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1 Comments:
arrived at a place where she did not doubt
It may be that she arrived at a place where she stopped questioning and debating. Of her doubts I cannot say.
I've noticed this about people I've known. Let's say a married couple with children. They are too busy to constantly re-evaluate what they believe. They settled those questions already, probably in college. They reached a point where they told themselves, consciously or not, "This is what I believe and I'm not going to analyze, question, or debate it anymore. I'm going to build from here, not dissect. This view may have flaws, I have flaws, but it's what I have to live with. This is the hand I was dealt."
So did God actually speak more to Mother Teresa than to the rest of us? It may be that she simply stopped questioning. She had confidence that what she was doing was right, then she went about her business. If she had kept up the inner debate, she never would've got anything done.
In college there was always a barrier between me and my fundamentalist friends because of, among other things, a question that always nagged me: "How can you be so certain?" Fundamentalism offered the promise of certainty. That is very seductive in a world such as ours, where so little is given and fixed, where everything seems to be up for grabs and debate, where you can get fired for no reason at all while you are trying to support a wife and children and all that goes with it. It got to the point where some people didn't even want to be around me (they would leave the lunch table when I sat down -- what wonderful Christians), because my persistent questions were ones they didn't want to hear. They began to see me as someone who undermined their faith! Stone the heretic!
Over time, I came to see that these people were not smarter or better than me. For a long time I told them, "I just don't have your faith." But probably what I lacked was the (secular) confidence that people with normal self-esteem possess. It is the confidence that says, "I'm going to do this and not second guess it." Or "That was my decision at the time, so I'm not going to relentlessly analyze and second guess."
Self-confidence gets confused with faith. You have to have a least a little faith in yourself even to get up in the morning.
By 
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August 23, 2007 7:38 PM
