Coping with Doubts and Darkness

Often I find myself feeling that the whole "faith thing" is utterly unreal. God seems an impossibility, a tempting illusion cooked up over the centuries, born out of human needs and surrounded by a great deal of impressive wisdom and admirable generosity of spirit. But just incredible.

So why not throw in the sponge? Why remain rooted in faith and in the church? Negatively, because I notice that those doubts always arise when I find myself standing outside myself and outside the flow of life, literally alienated. And I have learned not to trust this sulking self.

More positively I recognize that reverence is a key attitude for faith. I may have to wait through dark moods before being able to re-capture and re-enter that zone of reverence. Eventually, with a little patience, I get in touch again with a wisdom that is in tune with my deepest human experience. So I have stopped being surprised by bouts of doubt. They come and go like inner changes of weather.

St Ignatius Loyola offered some classical suggestions for surviving these darker moments. His advice can be summarized in three maxims:

1. Don't change your direction in the dark: no major decisions without real peace!
2. Push against your negative attitudes: nourish your humanity gently towards the return of the light.
3. Trust that the empty times will not last: dawn will come, perhaps with a bit of help.

Adapted from Where is your God? (Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1991), published in USA as Losing God ( Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, CT, 1992), from Chapter 3.