Like Dorothy Day, we need to raise our true fears and insecurities to God, praying, over and over again: “I’m afraid! I feel so alone and isolated in this! I don’t want to do this! I’m completely inadequate! I haven’t any strength left! I’m full of anger! I’m bitter at so many things! I hate some of the places where my Christian morality has led me! I’m jealous of others who don’t have my moral inhibitions! I’m tempted in ways that I’m ashamed to speak of! I need more support than you’ve been giving me! Send me someone or send me something! If you want me to continue on this road you’ve got to give me more help! I need this now!”
We all have our moments of chaos and crisis. Loss, death, sickness, disappointment, hurt, loneliness, hatred, jealousy, obsession, fear—these come into our lives and often we find ourselves overwhelmed by the darkness they cause. What can we do about them? How can we pull ourselves out of the dark chaos they put us into? The simple answer of course is prayer. But that answer is sometimes given too simplistically. We all have heard the phrases, so true in themselves: “Pray it through! Take your troubles to the chapel! Give it to God! God will help you!” I can speak only for myself, though I suspect that my experience has its parallels in other lives, and I have found that often when I try to pray through some deep hurt, I find no relief and, at times, end up more depressed, more immersed in the chaos, and more obsessively self-preoccupied than before praying. Often I end up sucking God into my obsession rather than opening my obsession to God.”
Sometimes when loneliness, depression, and chaos would threaten to overwhelm him, Nouwen would go to a friend’s house and ask that friend to hold him while he cried. Not an easy thing to do, but in that there is a lesson: when we stare life’s chaos and our own demons fully in the face, someone or something had better be holding us, or that darkness can just as easily destroy us as make us stronger.
Excerpt From
Sacred Fire
Ronald Rolheiser
https://books.apple.com/us/book/sacred-fire/id777330483
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