A humble attempt to Complete the Dark Night of the Soul

St. John of the Cross wrote a famous poem and commentary on the poem called The Dark Night of the Soul. I have copied St. John's poem below and then I have written my "completion" of the poem in another poem. I will never be St. John so this is not an "improvement" but rather a poetic reflection on life after the experience of the dark night.


Stanzas Of The Soul


1. One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.


2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.


3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.


4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.


5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.


6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.


7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.


8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Here is my attempt to continue the story:


The Dark Night Completed

O, the bliss of the those lilies
amongst whom my cares rest.
Trumpets of white and yellow
sanctuary the heart’s burden
in tenderness and refuge..

I sought this field of care
with abandon and forgetfulness
asearch for the Beloved
who alone could satisfy my soul
pained in hungering desire.

Now filled I take the love
the Beloved has bestowed
to a world covering its soul pain
in accumulated goods hiding
its true diagnosis.

O, how my heart desires
To bury my face in the breast
of holy love, yet
true love is only known
in generosity.

Dandelion and thistle around me
testimonies of false promises
of beauty and refuge..
Only those who rest in lilies
know Beauty and Protection.

Light and hope unfold in the leaving
To touch those whose hearts,
Dark and concealed,
Cry out for the Beloved
-       Ah, the sheer grace! –

Ronald Friesen © 2011

Self-transcendence

Man does not have to transcend himself in the sense of pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. He has, rather, to respond to the mysterious grace of a Spirit which is at once infinitely greater than his own spirit and yet which, at the same time, offers itself as the total plentitude of all Gifts, to be in all reality his "own Spirit."

Merton. Thomas, Faith and Violence (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press: 1968) 117-118

Why the poor and middle class might be angry

I am thinking about why the poor and most of the middle class have a right to be angry.

Both groups see 4.2% of their earnings taken away each month as a payroll deduction and put into Social Security (SS). Now there is a limit at which this amount is capped. If you earn more than $106,800 (in 2011), you will see a maximum $4,485.60 deducted for the year. If you make $212,000 your tax ratio is 1:2 compared to the person making the average median income of $50,035 of a Glendale, AZ household.

There is a common argument going around the blogsphere that says, "The poor pay no taxes." What they really mean is the poor don't pay any income taxes. The poor pay lots of other kinds of taxes, e.g. gasoline, electricity, heating oil, property, food, etc. Those making more then $106,000 pay those taxes as well.

There is a problem in the calculation which is why the poor actually pay more than the rich in taxes: the rich are spreading their tax base over a larger portion of their income. Here is the US Department of Agriculture chart on how much Americans spend on food eaten at home: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodcost-home.htm. On the Thrifty plan the average family of four spends $544.50 a month while on the Liberal plan the family of four spends $1,056.30. In Glendale, Arizona, the food tax rate is 1.8%. The family living on the Thrifty plan would pay $9.50 in taxes while the family on the Liberal plan would pay about twice that amount. While the US 2011 poverty level for a  family of four is $22,350; the median household income for 2009 in Glendale, AZ was $50,035. (Median means that there are an equal number of people living below $50,035 as above $50,035.) For argument sake, let's use the median income and the SS cut off family and the Thrifty food plan. Each family pays $114 a year on food taxes. The ratio of taxes paid between the median income family and the SS cut off family is more than 2:1.

One could go through the rest of the household expenses and tax rates and soon discover the same kind of ratios.

There is a I use the SS example above because US citizens have been told that they are paying in that hard-earned 4.2% because it will be there for them when they retire. Here is George H.W. Bush's statement: "We rescued the Social Security system eight years ago on a bipartisan basis. When we did, we made a promise to every American who receives Social Security benefits, to those who support the system today, and to those who will rely on it when they retire. We have worked together to assure that today's benefits are protected and that the system will be strong enough to continue providing benefits to future retirees. I intend to assure that we keep our promise." (http://www.ssa.gov/history/bushstmts.html) This kind of statement has been made over and over again by the leadership of the United States.

Here is the true state of the Social Security Trust fund:

"Social Security expenditures exceeded the program’s non-interest income in 2010 for the first time since 1983. The $49 billion deficit last year (excluding interest income) and $46 billion projected deficit in 2011 are in large part due to the weakened economy and to downward income adjustments that correct for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years. This deficit is expected to shrink to about $20 billion for years 2012-2014 as the economy strengthens. After 2014, cash deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Through 2022, the annual cash deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets from the General Fund of the Treasury. Because these redemptions will be less than interest earnings, trust fund balances will continue to grow. After 2022, trust fund assets will be redeemed in amounts that exceed interest earnings until trust fund reserves are exhausted in 2036, one year earlier than was projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2085." (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html)

There are some wondering why the poor and middle class are angry.

Sources:
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240/~/2011-social-security-tax-rate-and-maximum-taxable-earnings
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/11fedreg.shtml

Use your one life well....

“Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and that there is only one glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.”

—	Teresa of Avila

“It is true, political problems are not solved by love and mercy. But the world of politics is not the only world, and unless political decisions rest on a foundation of something better and higher than politics, they can never do any real good for men. When a country has to be rebuilt after war, the passions and energies of war are no longer enough. There must be a new force, the power of love, the power of understanding and human compassion, the strength of selflessness and cooperation, and the creative dynamism of the will to live and to build, and the will to forgive. The will for reconciliation.” - from Introductions East & West. The Foreign Prefaces of Thomas Merton

The Necessity of Suffering

Because the soul is purified in this forge like gold in the crucible, as the Wise Man says [Wis. 3:6], it feels both this terrible undoing in its very substance and extreme poverty as though it were approaching its end. This experience is expressed in David's cry: Save me, Lord, for the waters have come in even unto my soul; I am stuck in the mire of the deep, and there is nowhere to stand; I have come unto the depth of the sea, and the tempest has overwhelmed me. I have labored in crying out, my throat has become hoarse, my eyes have failed while I hope in my God [Ps. 69:1-3]. God humbles the soul greatly in order to exalt it greatly afterward. And if he did not ordain that these feelings, when quickened in the soul, be soon put to sleep again, a person would die in a few days. Only at intervals is one aware of these feelings in all their intensity. Sometimes this experience is so vivid that it seems to the soul that it sees hell and perdition open before it. These are the ones who go down into hell alive [Ps. 55:15], since their purgation on earth is similar to what takes place there. For this purgation is what would have to be undergone there. The soul that endures it here on earth either does not enter that place, or is detained there for only a short while. It gains more in one hour here on earth by this purgation than it would in many there. 

St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, Book 2, Chapter 6, pt. 6

Commentary: Many people will find this text troubling because we want to avoid pain, discomfort and suffering at all costs. When we begin to see the troubling aspects of our lives as teaching points or, in St. John's view, points of purification, we begin to climb to new vistas of spiritual growth. We have to go down before we can go up. Christians outside of the first world understand this principle of spiritual growth; first world Christians, having often been saved from any suffering and pain, shrink from this understanding and remain spiritually impoverished their entire lives.
(c) 2011 Ronald Friesen

What is true love?

“Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.”
-St. John of the Cross