FRIDAY SERMON: The dark day of the sole

MARTIN WILES FRIDAY SERMON

“Why do you turn away from me? Why do you treat me as your enemy?” — Job 13:24 (NLT)

I looked down to see something I’d never witnessed before.

My daughter and I were on an overnight backpacking trip. At noon, thunderstorms rolled in. As we hiked through mountain valleys, we saw dark clouds decorating the neighboring mountains. Fortunately, we dodged them, until an entire system of storms rolled through.

After waiting out the storm in a porta-potty, we made our way back to our tent. Rain had turned the trail into a river. As we plodded through the water —her in a new pair of boots but me in a pair I’d had for quite some time — I heard a strange noise coming from my left foot. Looking down, I saw my sole had separated from the boot. Not much farther down the trail, the right boot did the same. For the remainder of our journey, I experienced a dark day of the sole.

A more familiar phrase is “dark night of the soul.” John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Spanish priest and poet who worked with Teresa of Avila to reform the Carmelite Order, first used the phrase in two of his major writings, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night. But he used it in a different way than it has come to mean today.

Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer, and theologian gave the phrase a different meaning. He realized the warmth of God’s presence can elude us. In his secret journal, he told of a dark season in his life in which he couldn’t feel God’s love. Although he had helped millions of people around the world experience a more intimate experience with God, he was in a dark night of the soul.