Dark Night of the Soul
It was first in the Tennessee wilderness around campfires beside free-flowing streams that I realized that I was a spiritual being. Surely, as a PK and a Christian school grad I knew it on some level, but not really, not in any way that made a difference. I wasn’t even comfortable with the term born-again back then. Too right-wing, too what? Baptist? Fundamental? I wasn’t even comfortable with the term ‘saved’ as that term sounded too much like a church camp kid on a Jesus high one week only to be fornicating and partying it up the next. People in my neck of the woods, literally the woods of northeast Arkansas, threw the term ‘saved’ around like it was something you might pick up down at the Piggly Wiggly. I got: pickles, baloney, and saved. People were always talking about getting saved or someone else getting saved, but rarely did I see a lasting difference. Besides my flock put the emphasis on whether one was baptized, not whether Jesus saved one, but whether one was baptized. Interestingly enough, being baptized and getting saved are both biblical terms, though I’m sure that some 2000 years later we’ve distorted the terms and meanings somewhat even if inadvertently. Asking if one is baptized puts the emphasis on the individual whereas inquiring as to whether one is saved emphasizes the salvation Jesus offers. I gave the Baptists and fundies a hard time above, but the truth is most denominations have baggage in terms of what they teach about salvation. The church/es got in a mell of a hess when they took the salvation that Jesus provided and made it into a religious, doctrinal do-it-our way issue. I say who cares what the old white men say, get a Bible, talk to God, do it the way you feel - Sprinkle, pour, wade in it, wallow/waller in it, or go down to Mud Creek with a preacher with duck-hunting waders, but do it according to your conviction based upon what God has placed upon you - not following section 7, code 1, of denominational handbook 203.
I about took off in a direction there I did not intend to go. All of the above to say that despite being knocked upside the head with the Buckle of the Bible Belt my entire life, I didn’t know beans about spirituality. It took big-city back-to-the-earth hippies with degrees, bare feel, funny accents, wild ideas, and create-your-own spirituality to get me to defend what it was I purported to believe – Christianity. The trouble was mine fell flat. I was in dire need of a spiritual Viagra as I simply could not compete with these Canadian and Yankee hippies and their spirituality.
They spoke of the Great Spirit, the Creator, the Universe, and even God, but they weren’t talking in Sunday School terms. No, there’s was a Jesus-was-a-good-guy-to-look-up-to, but there's-not-just-one-savior kind of spirituality. Uh oh, Hello, Momma done warned me ‘bout these kinds of folk! But these weren’t drug-induced Satanists set out to destroy the Kingdom of God, and America to boot, they were fellow seekers. Now, I reserve the right to believe that they were misguided, but they certainly felt the same about me. That was the beauty of our friendships. They talked to me about their Great Spirit and the Universe and I talked to them about Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Truth is, they believed in their version of god more than I did of mine. I was arguing out of conviction from my mind and my religion, but not my heart or spirit. They showed me that I could talk a good game, but it was evident I didn’t really believe it. They talked passionately, I talked factually.
Thanks to them I became awakened to spirituality even if I didn't follow their lead. I took it to the God I barely knew and presented Him with what I had always thought I knew, and what these folks had said of Him, and asked Him to become real in my life if He was indeed real. Wow, this has been a long journey, that started out with what I have referred to as bipolar spirituality – roller-coaster-like ups and downs. High as a kite, flat as a flitter. A whirlwind tour of the supernatural. Feeling under attack for a season, feeling as if you’re walking hand in hand with God the next. Spiritual whiplash. The highs are so high that you can’t not go back for more, but the lows are worse that the lows before you accepted Jesus causing you to consider dismissing the whole shebang.
Finally a couple of years ago I noticed that the lows just stopped. My six-week to two-month cycles of riding the spiritual waves stopped. Less ebb and more flow. It got to the point that my lows were like other people’s highs. I had a super-saved college friend who's smile and positivity would have put Joel Osteen to shame who said that he didn’t have bad days, that he refused. Nonsense!, I thought. But, low and behold, I stopped having them. Horrible things would happen, family tragedies, personal setbacks, relationships upended, failures, disappointments, but none of it mattered because I had God. Not in any religious, I’m in church every time the doors are open kind of way – I wasn’t in church. No choir, no Sunday School, no nothin’ – just me and a dogged pursuit of God. Turns out that He wasn’t quite the Jerk or Task-Master that the world or the church had presented Him to be. I can go to church and feel guilty as Hell, but spending time with God I feel loved beyond measure. Granted, there have been times when God has been firm with me about a position I’ve taken or an attitude, but this is so minor in comparison to the liberation and encouragement and love that I feel in His presence. Ever been in love? That’s what this relationship with God has been like. When you’re in love, you don’t care if you’re broke or sick or ugly or fat or bald or if the person you love is a felon with misspelled tattoos. Love is love and when you’re in it, nothing else matters. Insert your Hallmark/Kodak moment here because cheesy as it sounds, it fits. God is love.
But what about those times when life sucks, when you can’t make heads or tails out of anything? What about those times when you pray like a black woman and it feels as if your ceiling is made of Teflon? What about when everything and everyone you’ve been praying for gets worse? What about when you wake up and you feel that God is not there anymore? You remember back to the times when you felt like you were the Teacher’s Pet and you know God didn’t leave or forsake you per his Word, but is sure feels like it. . . What about the times when you pick up your Bible and Russian-Roulette it in desperation for a word that is relevant to your life now and you come up with a talking donkey and nothing that applies to 21st Century now? Name it and claim it doesn’t cut it in this mode. Having faith and giving a testimony of what you’re believing God for doesn’t cut it when you’re in this place. Suddenly you remember all the people who died believing they were going to get healed. All the people who got up and shouted in church about what God is doing for them, two months later their name in the paper for a DWI, divorce, bankruptcy. Where is God? The world seems to be falling apart, families falling apart, nations dissolving. Where is God?
The critic comes in with his nonsense talking about you sinned, or it wasn’t real, it was a weakness for you to ever believe in God. Talking about you don’t deserve it, you don’t deserve to be one with God anymore. You just can’t do it. The church folks and the conventional wisdom among the saved is to blame the individual. Isn’t that just like people to blame the victim? People cannot stand to have the God that they have placed in their little minds to be criticized or questioned. It rocks their world and shakes their foundations and they run screaming and crying to religion and self-help books with 7 simple steps. It's like pulling teeth to get people to cut the religious crap and have some real-talk about God and life. I don't know where we get this image of Jesus-followers being mealy-mouthed, baby-talking, G-rated do-gooders. I once knew a jaded preacher who said that if he was ever in serious trouble, not to send for the church folks but to call his buddies down at the pool hall or bar because they could at least talk sense and be real.
I admit that I feel shocked having come down off the mountaintop with God. I’m just like, where did You go? The enemy would love nothing more for me to think that it was psychology, that I was so weak that I needed to believe in a God who wasn’t there so I created an idol. Nonsense! What I’ve experienced in the supernatural, spiritually, has been more real to me than anything on this earth. That’s just it, where did it go? This isn’t a why do bad things happen to good people kind of a question, nor is it a struggling-with-my–faith kind of ordeal. It’s pure and simple, God, what’s the deal? Where are you? Have you purposed this or did I screw up? I’m sure I screwed up, but you don’t abandon people for that, do you? The Interstate billboard says you didn’t leave, but I feel like you did. Wisdom says believe not that which you feel, but that which is. Who needs wisdom when you can have relationship, okay kidding, but seriously, let’s get this show back on the road. I miss you. I’m sorry I was seeking you for the answers more than I was seeking you for you. I feel like you didn’t allow this time because you were mad or upset, but because you’ve been testing my faith and allowing me to take steps on my own. I know you’re here, but I miss your presence. I miss your voice. I miss walking with you in the garden in the cool of the day.
