dark night of the soul

In St. John of the Cross’s poetry, the dark night is also a night of profound, even ecstatic beauty.

I love pop psychology pieces that try to make sense of those Christmas-tree-colored splotches that appear on brain scans. 

Ernst Toller is not so different from the male anti-heroes at the heart of Paul Schrader's earlier, more sensational films.

At first I found the "little flower" insufferable. Then I read her unedited writing.

From his youth Lax experienced a love of God that would not abate, calling him toward both solitude and engagement with others.

Instead of sitting down to rage at a blank page again, I grabbed a copy of Don Quixote. Three days later, the ice of time had cracked.

When I was 13, my pastor slipped me Glenn Clark's The Soul's Sincere Desire. Within three pages, I knew I had a soul.

Most spiritual leaders have wrestled with faith. Most of your pastors and most of the people that you look up to have questioned their faith and doubted God. It’s just that when we do it, we call it fancy, poetic things, like, “The dark night of the soul.”

Maybe what sociologists call mainline decline is God pulling us away from external things so we can rediscover our union with God in love.

I was the only woman in a seminary course on negative theology. One day, a young man raised his hand and asked, “What about an ordinary housewife? How could a person like that live this life of prayer?”