Noche Oscura

Noche Oscura is The Dark Night. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross both wrote about the dark night of the soul. It has come into common parlance as referring to a bad time, a dry time and a hopeless time, often as a time when God is gone or not felt. But Richard Rohr writes about what Teresa and John were really talking about: the dark night of the soul as a necessary time. Not, in the “Life is suffering” Scott Peck way but necessary because the dark night of the soul is when God is actually deeply close, so close that he is working in us. These are the times God is so far inside us doing his surgery.

In steps 6 and 7 we ask to be healed, we ask to be relived, we say to God, " I am willing and I have tried and now if it’s ever gonna change it’s up to you". Then we ache. Often we say that surrender is painful, but thru the lens of Teresa and John of the Cross we can see this as the kind of pain that comes with surgery.

I have been taking care of a friend after surgery and see the healing pain. Get out of that bed and walk is the first thing the nurses say. You have to “ambulate”: Get up and walk. Or maybe like Jesus said, “Take up your bed and walk.”