A Winter-Like Lull

everything is circular

Call it a prayer block, a spiritual lull, the wilderness experience, the dark night of the soul. But eventually and invariably, we all find ourselves suddenly wrenched into an inner abyss. - (Listening for God, pg. 33) 

French toast and Nutella. A stellar combination, I might add. A few mimosas, one too many, and I find myself drifting into deep thought. My best friends and I just successfully planned and executed a vacation that we all knew we needed. So, as one made the chocolate-covered strawberries, as another cheered as the bottle popped, and another ensured the food would be properly dealt with (aka, eating it!), we all listened to Netflix’s latest documentary, ‘In Our Mothers’ Garden’ as based on Alice Walker’s prose.   

We pressed pause from time to time, discussing our cultural differences. Spanning from St. Vincent, Haiti, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria, we found a few overlaps in our life experiences, and yet some items remained unique. Our conversation unveiled a deeper level of curiosity and knowing we had for one another. 

Naturally, sister talks rarely ever remain on one subject. If your sister circle can, kudos to you! 

Our Mothers

Straddling between feeling the “-itis” after indulging in our brunch and wanting to catch up on lost time from not having in-person conversations, we shifted talk from past partners, spirituality, and most notably, our mothers. 

I think that’s what pains me the most about having lost my mother at a young age. After her passing, I spent so many years trying to “mother me,” that I long for being mothered by my mother. Don’t get me wrong, I am abundantly blessed by the community of mothers I have, including my bonus mother, but even for just 30 minutes, if I could, I would love to have time with my mother. 

Alice Walker wrote

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mother’s name. - (In Our Mothers’ Garden)

I’ve shared before about the power of knowing one’s name, and yet, how does that power transcend when you’re in a winter-like lull of a season?

When the silence consumes. 

When the questions overwhelm. 

When the longing for another or for familiarity seems unbearable. 

Dr. Renita Weems in “Listening for God” calls this experience “trusting the silent journey.” 

I’m talking about the time after the ecstasy of the beginning gradually or abruptly wears off and the in-between of what seems as the mountaintop endpoint of the journey. 

Letting Go

I think it’s the tightly holding on to the idea of what “should be” that makes the valley experience even more painful. This is not to insinuate that prayers, dreams, and actions for new life shifts are wrong, but that as much as I crave newness, these lulls, these silences, these valley-like phases hold more power and wisdom than I initially thought. 

As painful as they may be to endure, seasons are a welcome change. Deep within us is an internal clock regulating when it is time to gaze and when it is time to glimpse, when it is time to speak, and when it is time to listen. We will gaze again, but for now, we must content ourselves with a glimpse. We will speak again, but in the meanwhile, we must be satisfied with listening. 

We hope we are better human beings for becoming mindful and attentive to the spiritual side. If we are not, we will settle for being better listeners for the most part. We’re never as far along as we think, because the spiritual journey is circular. We are always repeating ourselves, returning to old themes, reexamining the same issue from a different angle and from the vantage point of a different season. We don’t move on; we return wiser. - (Listening for God, p.32) 

“We don’t move on; we return wiser.”

And so, I have surrendered (and in many cases, I am still surrendering). Surrendered my thoughts of the should-have-been. Surrendered past disciplines of old seasons and routines that must be done a certain way. Surrendered the belief that I just need to pretend my way through life. 

This realization has been the heaviest to realize. To finally have the language to name where I’m at in my journey. The tears shed because I wish I could just speak to my mother about it, that I’ll gain greater clarity, that we can sit in this silence together, in an embrace. This current phase of my journey has caused me to sharply face my spirituality and how I practice it.

I wrestle with my faith far too much than I’d prefer, yet, heartily encourage others to discover the core of their faith for themselves. Doesn’t that seem odd? Weems points to this exact inner conflict:

To admit that in the spiritual journey, highs are brief, sporadic, and rare and that the human heart experiences far longer periods of dullness, emptiness, and silence, can be threatening. - (Listening for God, p.26) 

Writing as my Spiritual Practice

It has been most apparent through my writing, which I consider my core spiritual practice. 

I’m editing my blog post for Foster on “writing as a spiritual practice,” in which I advocate for the reflecting, the journaling, the enticing retreat from the world onto blank pages as a form of healing and spiritual discipline. Yet truthfully, my journaling as of late has looked like tear-stained pages, smeared ink, and incomplete fragments. 

This womb-like darkness seems to have made its way back again, a bit sooner than I thought. Except, now that I understand the reality of this cyclical journey, this middle makes more sense. 

When finally I stopped flogging myself for the hollow feeling I’d been carrying around inside for months, I began to notice a pattern. After every high there came a spiritual low. After months of maturing in my prayer life and of feeling myself becoming increasingly sensitive to the nearness and presence of the divine in my surroundings, I noticed myself becoming spiritually listless and unable to muster any passions for the disciplines I’d undertaken to nurture the inward journey. - (Listening for God, p.34)

Reading Weem’s book left me to weep. Perhaps this is what my mother would’ve shared with me. The winter continues, but now I feel more equipped to go through it. 

Closing out with more words from Weems, I hope this is as much of an encouragement as it was to myself.

One of the most painful lessons is learning how to appreciate the hush of winter, when more growth takes place underground than above ground, and there in quiet, unnoticeable ways. 

I gave myself permission to stop thinking I had to be superb all the time; it was all right to stutter and putter along. 

Winter returns a thousand times. But so does spring. There are things to be gained from staying put, making it a day at a time, slowing down, and giving love, hope, and renewal a chance. It’s possible to live through winter. And when we do, we’re glad, for there are lessons learned in the winter that not only cannot be learned in the spring but must be mastered in order to appreciate the spring. - (Listening for God, pg. 37)

I’ll be reflecting on these thoughts for now, but until then, and with love

-Chi