Pete Scarezzo

“For most of us the ‘Wall’ or ‘Dark Night of the Souls’ appears through a crisis that turns our world upside down. It comes, perhaps, through a divorce, a job loss, the death of a close friend or family member, a cancer diagnosis, a disillusioning church experience, a betrayal, a shattered dream, a wayward child, a car accident, an inability to get pregnant, a deep desire to marry that remains unfulfilled, a dryness or loss of joy in our relationship with God, a building permit denied by the community for the fourth time.

The classic work of St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, written over five hundred years ago, described the journey in three phases: beginners, progressives, and perfect. To move out of the beginning stage, he argued, required the receiving of God’s gift of the dark night, or the Wall. This is the “ordinary way” we grow in Christ. A failure to understand this is one of the major reasons many start out well in their journeys but do not finish. How do we know we are in “the dark night”? Our good feelings of God’s presence evaporate. We feel the door of heaven has been shut as we pray. Darkness, helplessness, weariness, a sense of failure or defeat, barrenness, emptiness, dryness descends upon us.

The Christian disciplines that have served us up to this time “no longer work.” We can’t see what God is doing and see little visible fruit in our lives. This is God’s way of rewiring and “purging our affections and passions”. He does this so we might delight in his love and enter into a richer, fuller communion with him. God wants to communicate to us his true sweetness and love. He longs that we might know His true peace and rest. He works to free us from unhealthy attachments and idolatries of the world. He longs for an intimate, passionate love relationship with us. God desire is that His will truly be our will. Failure to understand and surrender to God’s working in us at the Wall often results in great long-term pain and confusion. Receiving the gift of God in the Wall, however, transforms our lives forever. For a fuller explanation of the Wall, look at Emotionally Healthy Spirituality”.