Recently I’ve been re-reading several books that were important to me years ago. To re-read a book in maturity is surprisingly enlightening. Life experiences have enriched one’s perspective and understanding over time. The book you knew long ago can offer new insights. Though you’re standing on the same beach, you are looking out at a different horizon, often one brighter, clearer.
The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, written in the 16th century, has been an interesting re-read. It was complex the first time I encountered it decades ago, but I found it just as challenging this month. Considered a masterpiece of spiritual, mystical, theological writing, it elucidates the stages of the journey towards the divine, or God. Particularly explaining the darkness that comes on this path and the purposeful teachings this darkness brings. The Dark Night of the Soul throws open a soul-quest, away from sense, detached from material things and superficial goals. Studying this book is a solitary journey of contemplation, uncertainty, of leaving self for something far greater. The journey involves honesty, mental alertness, prayerfulness, and fearless examination of one’s faults and fears. It also includes emptiness, trials, and dark aridness that purges to purify.
The author speaks of “aridities,” what I’ve come to call “the dry darkness that teaches.” Alone, one enters this darkness, yearning for the light of divine love, an achievement not of one’s doing, but guided by God’s grace. A dark night can go on for days or months. Quiet acceptance and perseverance matters. As St. John says: “For God sets them in this night only to prove them and to humble them.”
This book is not for everyone. Artists (as well as some religious) however, will recognize their lives in it.
Whatever view a book presents, you still have your own reckoning to do with it. You are still the one standing on the beach. You see a different sunset every evening. Sometimes it’s vivid orange. Other times muted purple. Sometimes just a pink glow. You take them all in. Sort their beauty. Get their message. Pick a favorite to paint. You do the same with a good book. Good books, like sunsets and paintings, stick with you and become lasting friends.
Artwork: Pink Horizon, framed oil, 8″ x 8″ $195. This new little painting is at the framers as I write. I will put it in a show in a couple months. It reflects the light and cloud movement on a stormy beach afternoon, of which we’ve plenty here in Maine.