Dark night of the soul

Excerpted from a recent e-mail I sent to a friend:

"Sometime soon I'll write out more about my current state, but not now. It's one of those moments when on the surface it may look like I'm doing better than I've been in a long time - I'm really involved at church, I'm playing for two symphonies, I work out every day either before or after work, sometimes even with a personal trainer, but I also can't sleep well at night (either can't fall asleep, or wake up entirely too early), constantly question why I'm still where I am, and the moment I arrive at work each day, my heart sinks, my soul fills with rage and dread, and the physical feeling of oppression causes my shoulders to droop, my face to sag downward, my chest to become tight, and my head to begin to throb.

It sounds like we're both just holding on by a thread. May that thread be strong and lead us down paths that will bring us sure-footing. Amen."


With the theme of such darkness, let me share some photographs that recently came my way. These were taken in Magee, Mississippi, where the eye of the storm passed overhead.

Maybe these pictures, with their combination of beauty and dread, can remind us of God's presence even in the worst of times.

A Work in Progress

It has continued to be what a chaplain of mine once described as a dark night of the soul. No longer is it what it was a year ago, it has morphed into something that may be even more sinister than what it had been. Before, I was incapable of doing much of anything, trapped in my doubts and self-hatred. I am sure that many would say that I'm doing so much better now. I get up every day, go to work, am involved at church and in orchestras (you should have heard the barefoot cellist play the solo from Pirates of the Caribbean the other evening, even if she was forced to wear shoes), but I am not an smidgeon closer to who I want to be.

I usually blame my dead end crappy job for slowly draining my soul. It definitely contributes to my difficulties, but I must face the reality that a lot of my problem stems from me. I have neglected my soul, leaving no room in my life for me to fill it with what I will simply refer to as God, although the concept is much more complicated than the word.

The whole reason I am taking time off from school is to become reconnected to all of the reasons I need to pursue ministry. I haven't done much of anything toward that, and I am consistently left asking myself how I am supposed to do this. Maybe I need to stop considering myself the barefoot cellist and go back to being a work in progress . . .