Noticing Light in the Darkness as We Age

The Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross is best remembered for his poem called “The Dark Night of the Soul.” John lived over four hundred years ago and he died when he was much younger than I am now. He would probably be surprised to learn that I am looking to him to help me understand my experience of getting older in the twenty-first century. But I have discovered that getting older sometimes feels like entering a dark night.

The problem is that I do not really like the darkness. There are too many unknowns and I can’t see what’s happening. I am pretty sure I would not be getting older if this weren’t God’s plan for me. But why is my body less resilient and why is my thinking slowing down? Why have I lost so much that I used to believe validated my existence? I am beginning to think that perhaps I am experiencing darkness because God still has work to do in my soul and some of that work is best done in darkness.

Darkness has been with us since the beginning. The Book of Genesis says that when God created the world, “darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2 NIV). Perhaps in a similar way, the Holy Spirit is hovering over our dark nights. And one day, when we are ready, God will whisper to us, “Let there be light.” I am revisiting St. John’s dark night to learn more about God’s work and whispers in this season of my life.

The Mysteries of Darkness

For many years—from the time I was in high school into my forties —I experienced the pain of depression. At especially difficult times, I thought, This must be a dark night of my soul. I have since discovered that I had a very limited understanding of what John meant when he referred to the dark night.

It’s true that the dark night often includes depression, spiritual lethargy, and a sense of God’s absence. But now, in my senior years, I am finding there is much more to John’s teaching. Words like mystery, confusion, purgation, and purification are often used to describe the dark night. It is not a one-time experience, nor does it always have a beginning and an end. Most significantly, the dark night is not a sign of failure or weakness but a means of growth—growth that happens through surrendering.

“When we let go of everything we cling to,” John writes, “we make room for God to work in our lives.” Dr. Gerald May in his book The Dark Night of the Soul writes that John’s dark night “is an ongoing transition from compulsively trying to control one’s life toward a trusting freedom and openness to God and the real situations of life.”

Most significantly, the dark night is not a sign of failure or weakness but a means of growth—growth that happens through surrendering.

This is where my soul in “old age” resonates the most with John’s concept of the dark night. I’ve found that as we age, we surrender again and again. Some of us surrender jobs, possessions, our home, or our independence. We also might find ourselves surrendering the illusions we have about ourselves and God, and even our certainties about what we believe. We may find ourselves questioning assumptions that have been deeply rooted in our lives for decades. Yet even these questions can draw us closer to God.

As May writes,

Though we don’t realize it at the time, when the habitual senses of God do disappear in the process of the dark night, it is surely because it is time for us to relinquish our attachment to them. We have made an idol of our images and feelings of God, giving them more importance than the true God they represent.

Sometimes this kind of spiritual growth means coming face to face with deep disappointment—with ourselves, with others, with lost opportunities, and with unmet expectations. Many of us arrive in our senior years with shame, regret, and anger left over from our younger years. In a way we may never understand, it is during our dark nights that God draws us closer. As John writes, “the road to spiritual growth is often a painful one, but it leads to a deeper union with God…. It is in the depths of our suffering that we can find the true light that guides us towards God.”

In both the dark night and as we age, we might struggle with guilt about what is happening. We might feel that God has let us down, or that we have let God down. May writes that people experiencing the dark night

are likely to feel it is somehow their fault; they wonder where they went so wrong to cause the divine Lover to disappear. And when this loss is accompanied by lassitude and emptiness in prayer and other spiritual practices and the lack of motivation for them, a person may easily wonder, ‘Do I even believe anything anymore? Do I even care?’

The dark night does not provide answers to these experiences and feelings. That is why it is called “dark.” It is mysterious, surprising, and utterly out of our control. Just like getting older.

Transformation in the Night

I usually notice transformation with hindsight rather than at the time of God’s transforming work. When I do notice, I see that it was surrender that helped me pay attention to God’s presence in my life. It was surrender that brought freedom. It was surrender that reminded me I am not responsible to “fix” things that only God can fix. I am not even responsible for my own growth, sanctification, or, as John would say it, my own purification. Only God can truly transform us. We can notice, show up, and agree with God, but God’s grace does the work.

I see that it was surrender that helped me pay attention to God’s presence in my life. It was surrender that brought freedom. It was surrender that reminded me I am not responsible to “fix” things that only God can fix.

God has been whispering these truths to me all my life, but I seem to listen most intently when I am out of control in a dark night. That is probably why I find that getting older brings inner transformation—I am more out of control of my body and my life than I have been before. But the older I get, the more thankful I am for God’s love in this painful experience.

The gifts of God in the dark night remind me of the first chapter of the Gospel of John. John says that Jesus is light. He adds that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:4–5 NRSV). This is good news indeed. The darkness we sometimes experience as we age will not overcome us. As we experience the light of God’s love, we probably reflect that light more now than we did when we were young, energetic, and busy.

The dark night, then, like the aging process, is a gift from God that invites us to experience healing and grace more deeply. I am still waiting for the morning. So much in my soul still needs to be healed. But John’s “Dark Night of the Soul” is giving me hope. He reminds me, “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” I hope I can spend the rest of my life in that bright river.

The dark night, then, like the aging process, is a gift from God that invites us to experience healing and grace more deeply.

Suggested reading for those who want to dig deeper:

• The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth by Gerald May. This is a classic modern-day exploration of St. John’s understanding of the dark night of the soul.
• The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust more Than Our “Correct” Beliefs by Peter Enns. In this book Professor Enns shares his own journey through darkness to grow from belief in God to trust in God.
• Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor. In this memoir, author and retired professor Barbara Taylor describes moving through times of darkness to a new way of understanding herself and her relationship with God.
• Miracle: When Christ Touches Our Deepest Need by Flora Slosson Wuellner. This beautiful, short book is full of thoughtful meditations on passages from Scripture.