Monday, February 17, 2020

Virtue Development, Faith, part five, The paradox of finding faith in losing our faith,


After a period of relief when we have found what we have been looking for, there comes a period of disturbance. St. John of the Cross called it the dark night of the soul. We become depressed and despair that we have lost our faith.

What happened in the previous stage of relief in thinking we had found what we were looking for was merely recognizing what we did not want. We came to the dawning that there must be a better way and we began our search and thought that we had found what we were looking for but what we found was merely the absence of what we decided we didn’t want. In this emptiness, in this vacuum, a deep depression sets in and we learn again that our lives are unmanageable and that we really, deep down, don’t know what we want. We lose our faith.

The paradox is that in losing our faith we find it by letting go of our search, our desiring, our hope for security in latching on to something we can control and be assured will be there to meet our ego needs. It is in turning over this desire for security to a power greater than ourselves, that we come to know true faith. True faith is faith in the unseen and the unknown and that which is beyond ourself in the Oneness.

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