Advent Moments: Standing in the Darkness

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There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. -Thoreau

I just finished my monthly Skype session with four women who are stellar at holding a space for my moments of darkness. I've a rather compulsive habit that spiritual directors call "the flight to light." That is, a difficult emotion arises and I use my mind to understand it and do a mental inquiry. With the AQAL map I can state, type and stage the thing faster than you can say quadrant. Or, I tell a story about the thing without allowing myself to fully experience the thing.

I hack at branches while avoiding the root.

This "thing" is anger. The flight to light types tend to be out of touch with anger. I tell my friends I want to forgive two people who've caused some significant hurt to someone I care about. I want to take their perspective, understand the fuller picture, apply some spiritual teaching and let it go. My friends pick up on my self-deception and they stop my chatter. They invite me to drop into our practice of noticing the emotion, sensing it inside of the body, breathing into it and welcoming the contraction. I breathe into anger and feelings of betrayal. As they hold a state of Presence, I feel a burning in my chest and am surprised by the intensity of feeling in this state. Ultimately I have to feel my powerless there is nothing I can do to make the challenge go away. I wait in darkness.

That night after the call, I dream of my godson who is now a 6' 8" nationally ranked rower. In the dream, he is a child again, smaller than me, and he wears a backback; he looks innocent and confused as he walks out the door. I wonder how he became so young again and I want to protect his vulnerability. In him, I see me.

Listen to Leslie talk about her experience of utilizing a diverse range of contemplative teachings and powerful tools in her groups, how this process was shaped by her own spiritual challenges, and what she is hearing from women about what they want from their Christian faith. What Women Want From Christianity

This is Advent. It is the dark, waiting place we stand between hatred and forgiveness, grief and sadness, strength and vulnerability, loss and recovery, clinging and surrender. It is an opening to a question and a pause. We're never closer to the light of the consciousness of the Christ than the moment we choose to stay with the messiness of our incarnation. We've such an attraction to the light and higher states of consciousness, but the truth is, it is the darkness of our incarnation that is compost for spiritual maturation. Spiritual practice is simply strength training for the moments when we can either disperse energy and attention on the story of our drama or stay with a full bodied integration of the emotional contraction. The Way is not clinging to a pseudo version of morality or God or enlightenment and becoming.

Hindu master Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj says, "Why do you insist on polluting the impersonal with your ideas of sin and virtue? The impersonal cannot be described in terms of good and bad. It is Being-Wisdom-Love-all absolute."

Virtue comes from the Latin word virs which means life force. So the only way of accessing the life force is to stay with it even when it shows up as difficult emotions. This is a basic practice in contemplative method.

Sometimes it's startling how little is known about such practical contemplative method particularly in the Christian tradition. There's significant material written on starting where we are, right here in our bodies. The "sin" of separation from the life force is actually a convertible energy where the virtue resides.

Irenaeus writes:

"My dear friend, you must begin by setting aside the language of the Christian tradition. Do not speak to me or to any of us us of incorruptibility and corruption. Speak instead of permanence of aim and impermanence of our countless selves.

Do not speak of the immortality of the soul until you have experienced a wish that is a material force in your inner life.

Do not speak of flesh; speak of resistance to awakening: self-deception, imagination, dispersal of energy of attention.

Do not speak of God; speak instead of the next step of understanding and presence.

Do not speak of mercy and forgiveness of sins; speak instead of an attitude of interest in yourself as you are.

The language of religion touches your emotions, but not your heart, which is veiled by the emotions."

The distinction of Christianity is incarnational love in and through our bodies. Yet, this can be so bloody difficult because we've such monumental resistance to our life force. We contract against our anger, fear, and panic even as neurobiologists tell us it's hardwired into the system. It's why people smell false piety in its many guises regardless of spiritual path. They sense a contraction.

I just finished facilitating a 12 week group using Michael Brown's book, The Presence Process. The Presence Process is essentially staying with the bodily felt sense of our contractions without feeding the story of our drama. Participants often commented that it's striking how deeply entrenched they are in their story and how they feel some serious resistance when asked to drop in, welcome the charged emotion, breathe and allow the virs. It takes an element of desire for the Something more to keep returning.


In every tradition, there are practices on this path which lies somewhere between sleepy potentiality and fully realized love. The proverbial star of Bethlehem entices us…Come, come, come closer to innocence before the body contracted against its life force. My 19 month old grandchild has been reminding me of this. When Alejandro is angry, his face reddens, he clenches his hands, rolls around on the floor a few times and then plays with blocks if no one tries to impede the emotional charge of anger. While this is not recommended for grown ups, we can, with practice, become more conscious of such difficult emotions through awareness of our own incarnate bodies.

As we deepen our ability to stand in the darkness in such Advent moments, we cultivate our capacity to experience the flow of conscious love unimpeded.