"St. John of the Cross"

"St. John of the Cross"

True spirituality is utterly countercultural because it’s non-merchandisable, non-measurable, non-provable. It is precisely nothing. Who wants to be nothing in this world? This culture’s goal is for us to be something, to be everything, to “win friends and influence people.”

St. John of the Cross puts it this way: “In order to come to pleasure you have not, you must go by a way that you will enjoy not. To come to the knowledge that you have not, you must go by a way that you know not. To come to the possession that you have not, you must go by a way in which you possess not. To come to be what you are not, you must go by a way that you are not” (Ascent of Mount Carmel, I, 13, #10).

We fear nothingness, of course. That’s why we fear death, too. I suspect that death is the shocking realization that everything I thought was me, everything I held onto so desperately, was precisely nothing. The nothingness we fear so much is, in fact, the treasure that we long for. We long for the space where there is nothing to prove and nothing to protect; where I am who I am, and it’s enough. Spirituality teaches us how to get naked ahead of time, so God can make love to us as we really are.

from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction