Our objective union with God is the true source of all peace and fulfillment, and thus, it is fair to say that contemplative practice creates space for such fulfillment. Nevertheless, contemplative practices are not about satiation without struggle. Periods of darkness, abandonment, doubt, and dissatisfaction are commonplace on the spiritual journey, to such an extent that they are considered a normal and even necessary part of that journey. Sometimes, our “desert experiences” involve lesser enjoyment of sensory pleasures and things that once seemed to bring us a sense of contentment. One major reason for his kind of dissatisfaction is that God needs to move us from loving the things of God, gifts of the Divine, to loving God for God’s own sake. The seeming “loss of Divine favor” can be difficult. Still more difficult, is the feeling of the loss of the Divine Presence itself – while the absence of God is an objective lie, a sense that God is absent is common to almost every spiritual journey (even Jesus speaks a sense of being abandoned by the Father from the cross!). This is an even more difficult period to explain, but it can be understood as God trying to move us from loving our ideas, concepts, or perception of the Divine, to loving God as God actually is. Mercifully, though we may not sense it, God upholds us through these times and always uses them to bring us to a place of greater depth, provided we keep our hearts open!
Submitted by Andy Dapron