Spirituality's brochure

The marketing is a lie, but the destination is true.

Faith, spiritual pursuits, and the effort to deepen our interior lives are not immune to using what can amount to marketing tricks. The “brochures” of spirituality across many faiths are awash with blissed-out aphorisms about doing all things, God’s plans for us being unstoppable, or inner tranquility being a perpetually available state. But once we unpack and settle into spirituality’s resort, we realize many of our issues snuck into our luggage. And those issues are ruining the vibe.

Whether it’s us or someone we are trying to help, offering wisdom can be like throwing a book on how to build a boat to someone drowning. All the well-intended timeless help in the world doesn’t seem to put them on dry land. It actually is deep.

Over the years, Henri Nouwen has been an endless help to me. None of his books have been more helpful than what he described as his ‘secret journal.’ A very short book of brief entries he made at one of his darkest moments in life. He had suddenly lost his energy to live and work, his sense of being loved, and even his hope in God. One might think a storied teacher with a body of work like his would be immune to such a dark season. But, unfortunately, one would be sorely mistaken.

In fact, as the book details, he had come to a time in his career where he felt the most affirmed and welcome. All seemed perfect, yet he came unglued. Perhaps all he’d been ignoring pulled up out front and piled out.

Dan Harris says we might think we’ve exorcised our demons, but they’re out in the parking lot doing push-ups.

Even in the best times, in our victories, the light of our cake’s candles, we can be confronted by our biggest struggles. As the National sings, Sorrow is a girl inside my cake.

Nouwen’s secret journal is called The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom. It is more a quick inflate life preserver for those drowning than a ship design manual. The introduction warns against reading too many brief entries at once. I’ve read the book countless times (it stays on my nightstand) and can say this is the aptest assessment of it one could use. It’s meant to be dense nutrition for our souls that needs time to digest. So go slow; it’s more trail mix than a squeezable yogurt tube.

The following two sentences inside have come to be engines that quietly hum deep inside Feral Soul:

The more you come to know yourself — spirit, mind, and body— as truly loved, the freer you will be to proclaim the good news. That is the freedom of the children of God.

Spoiler alert, Nouwen weathers this season and later has to be talked into publishing this little book that has likely saved a few lives. Or at least mine. Near its end, there are these lines…

As you conclude this period of spiritual renewal, you are again faced with a choice. You can choose to remember this time as a failed attempt to be completely reborn, or you can also choose to remember it as the precious time when God began new things in you that need to be brought to completion. Your future depends on how you decide to remember your past…You are facing a real spiritual battle. But do not be afraid.

That last line reminds me of Frederick Buechner’s timeless quote: Here’s the world, beautiful and terrible things will happen, don’t be afraid.

So here is spirituality’s resort: Beautiful and terrible things will happen, don’t be afraid.