The Darkest Night

"where are you
god of my darkest night
o missing one
who left me to my
own devices
ready with fear
and sorrow
hiding from questions that
had no answers"

As long as I believed that my depression, or difficult time, or lack of feeling God's presence, was either my fault because I wasn't doing something right, or, as some saints believed, it was God's way of purifying the soul, then my life couldn't change.  I was stuck in the belief that the change would come from outside of me by God's change of heart or by my working harder, fasting maybe to be more pleasing to God.

Really!!! What an infantile frame of mind but one which the Church kept us in, as many conservative churches do today.  The supposed loving god who is also a bully, hates his own creation, gays, for instance, and continues to impose stringent regulations about how to live this earthly life.  Heaven or hell, it's our choice.  Really!!!

I remember in seminary, when there was much discussion about the philosophers or theologians claiming that "God is dead".  I was never good with erudite arguments.  Of course, at that time, in 1978, I was appalled and thought these writers to be heretics.  Years later, as I created my own distance from the god of my childhood, I realized that yes, that childhood god is dead, because it was a false god, as all human images and descriptions of god are. 

My path led to a more humanistic approach.  I discovered the god spark within me and the energy from that helped me to change my life drastically, especially to take more responsibility for it.


Night vision

Darkness envelopes
too easily
the spaces in my mind.

No words, no comfort,
despair. Fear takes hold,
closes doors once open,
inertia of body and soul.

I doubt the worn paths
that lead to nowhere.
I release the questions
that have no answers.

I search within, instead
of beyond, find the divinity
of my being, and all of creaion.
In that space I discover
my night vision
as I learn to trust myself.

c) Helen Rousseau