Last month, I wrote in this blog about carrying a heavy heart due to the COVID surge, police killings of black and brown people, voter suppression, the undermining of democracy, and the destruction of our precious planet. This month, these continue to weigh on my heart as I add to the list the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Last month, I wrote about “Active Hope,” articulated by Joanna Macy, as a practice to help us face these seemingly intractable problems. This month, I add Constance Fitzgerald’s work to supplement and buttress Macy’s, then close with a practical tool by Alan Seale.
In her essays in Desire, Darkness, and Hope: Theology in a Time of Impasse (Cassidy and Copeland, eds.), Constance Fitzgerald points to the intractable problems we face today as indications of the limits of the rational mind. The finest minds in the world have tried to address these problems and failed. She names our time a time of “impasse” as we seem stuck in so many arenas.
Fitzgerald claims that we need to go deeper than the rational mind can take us if we want to address this impasse. She draws on the work of St. John of the Cross and his concept of the Dark Night as a way to go deeper. For John of the Cross, she claims, the Dark Night of the Senses, when we no longer see God’s answers to our prayers or hear God’s voice or feel God’s closeness, is God’s invitation to let go of our preconceived notions of who God is and what God should do. It is an invitation to be purified of our attachments, emptied, so that there is room for God to enter. The subsequent Dark Night of the Soul, when God seems to have disappeared entirely, reveals deeper attachments and provides a further invitation to purification.
Once we have said “yes” to this invitation to let go, opening space for God, prophetic hope emerges in unexpected ways, claims Fitzgerald. We have a sense of what is ours to do, perhaps only one small step at a time.
Alan Seale’s work, “The Deep Simple,” complements Fitzgerald’s with a practical tool for going deeper that can be used with individuals or groups. Seale’s questions go deeper than the rational mind in order to open us to the hidden wisdom within.
The five questions of “The Deep Simple” are:
- What are three things I know to be true about this?
- Which of those things holds the greatest power for us to explore right now?
- With that thing that you choose to explore, if something new was trying to emerge or something wanted to shift, what might that be?
- Who is that asking you to be? What role is it asking you to play in that shift?
- What is one step you can take now that begins movement toward that shift?
With Constance Fitzgerald and John of the Cross’s spiritual process of self-emptying, complemented by Alan Seale’s “Deep Simple” practice, I can begin to get unstuck and take my first steps. Though my heart remains heavy, I have tools to help me move forward.