The Gethsamanes that we experience in life

As the days progress towards my stem cell transplant which will take place on 25^th of July (Feast day of St James), the grace of God has helped me to stay extremely calm and collected, with very little anxiety.  Those around me seem to be more anxious than I, and this is something I was prepared for.  I am writing this post in my transplant ward, and am told that I will be in this room for at least five to eight weeks.  That’s longer than my Ignatian Retreat of 30 days that I did in Chiangmai, Thailand when I was a seminarian in Theology!  I suppose this is also a retreat in another sense. 

One of the most memorable meditations that we had to do in Chiangmai was the one on death.  The retreat master (who has since passed away, bless his soul) asked us to do this meditation at midnight, and this was to allow us to experience darkness at its best, I suppose.  One may think that meditating on death at midnight would be something that only the maudlin do.  On the contrary.  Especially for those who have some knowledge of what St John of the Cross wrote about the Dark Night of the Soul, you will know that it is in this darkness that one begins to encounter the God of Silence.

As a child, I used to be terrified of the dark.  I needed some light in the room to sleep, and it would be best to have some company with me.  But I had to learn the hard way as I was to have my own room later on.  I would find ways to ease the anxieties and one of them was to play music from the cassette player till I fell asleep (yes, it was THAT long ago).  I know that I have come a long way since then, and I have come to almost embrace darkness now, largely because God is as present in darkness as he is in light.  We tend to forget that in the creation story in Genesis, before there was light, there was God.  The way that God speaks in silence, the way that he moves in stillness is similar to the way that he is brilliant in darkness.  We just fail to appreciate this God of immense diversity when our minds have fixed notions of how God can and should work. 

My night nurses in this ward have remarked how sensitive I am to any light in my room at night when I asked them to switch off all lights so that I can sleep better.  Perhaps this is a sign that I am really at peace in this stage of my treatment, awaiting the transplant.

Why does God choose to remain hidden, silent, to work so slowly (most of the time) and not show himself?  Theologically, we say that he is ineffable – meaning that he is too great to be expressed in words.  What this translates to is this – we only do ourselves much damage when we box up God into neat categories, delimiting him.  The truth is that God, being God, just cannot be limited.  Any form that we give him in our human terms becomes something that greatly reduces his majesty, power and glory.  Notice that only one person of the Holy Trinity has taken on a form that is perceivable to the human eye.  The other two remain unseen, with no form and no body.  This is problematic for many because of the human need for proof and tangibility before any assent is made.  

But even for those of us who do believe, when we reach the Gethsamanes of our lives, we can go one of two ways.  We can turn around.  We can refuse to enter and even give plenty of good and justifiable reasons for doing so.  Or we can do the more difficult but perhaps also the more loving thing – to willingly enter into the Gethsamanes of our lives with deep faith and trust and surrender.  However, Gethsamanes are not pretty places.  They are lonely, they are silent, and often, they are are also dark. 

What are these Gethsamanes but the times of our lives when things don’t quite work out as originally planned and hoped for.  They are the ‘spanner in the works’ moments – when we fail at our projects, when friends and loved ones betray and disappoint us, when we are bereft of things and people that give us happiness, or when illness strikes us at the most unexpected of times.  Often, requiring of us to die to the self in these moments, and it is very natural for us to fight this.  The irony of it is that God often chooses these moments of seeming emptiness and pain to fill our lives with his love, power and presence in ways that we cannot imagine.  The love that we have propels us to go through this period of trial and testing and when we are faithful and trusting, and God will fill our emptiness beyond our imaginings. 

Entering into darkness with trust requires of us a loving patience because we have been too entranced by the dizzying lights of day.  A crude example is when we go into a darkened room like a cinema, and it takes quite a while for our eyes to be adjusted to the dim lighting.  But as our eyes get accustomed to the low level of light, we begin to make out quite clearly what lies in front of us.  Analogously, so too is this in our spiritual lives.  St John of the Cross was extremely graced to be given this insight into our shared spiritual journey, which, unfortunately, not many are willing to appreciate and enter into willingly.  Most of the times, we get pushed into this darkness by some circumstances beyond our management.  But the wonderful thing about God is that he doesn’t mind how we enter into it.  We only need to be willing to be led once we are in that “Holy Darkness” where there is blessed light. 

I may not be able to put up a blog post next Monday, as I could be very weak by the strong chemotherapy and full body radiation prior to the stem cell infusion.  God-willing, I will be able to say something meaningful and something that will lift each reader’s spirits and enrich the faith of each of my readers. 

I leave you this week with a song that was written by Dan Schutte, and he puts what I have reflected on into music.  Just click on the "play" button in the centre of the YouTube screen below (not accessible on hand-held devices, however).  If you are in any form of Gethsamane now in your life, listen to it.  If you need to, do this several times – first with your ears, subsequently and more importantly, with your heart.  Let God speak to you there where if you let him, and he will speak the loudest.  May God touch you and comfort you in your time of need, bringing you light in your Gethsamane moments.