Our culture and our innate instinct seeks pleasure and avoids suffering and sorrow. We know that sorrow is difficult to endure. The Cloud of Unknowing and the Dark Night of the Soul both describe this spiritual and sensory aridity. We feel nothing is moving, yet we know we can’t go backwards. Rather than do something to avoid this spiritual winter by vacationing in a warm spot, we endure it, knowing that God is working deep within our spirit.
